


The mirror

by Gaia_bing



Series: Everything has changed [2]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengeance, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A full-length wall mirror is where they first see each other, how they get to know each other, when the past comes back to haunt them and why everything around them changes. </p><p>A slash story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Agron and Duro's Handy Reno Services

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back with another story! This one is something close to my heart because I got the idea in my head years ago and I've always wanted to share it with somebody, so here it is! Hope you enjoy! :D

As he turned the key off the ignition of the large van containing all of their stuff, Agron looked through the driver's window and straight at the house which would become his workplace for over the next month or so. A voice beside him made his head turn:  
  
"That house looks a little creepy, like that one in Amytiville or something."  
  
Agron glared at his little brother Duro and knocked playfully on his shoulder with his fist. "Come on now, it doesn't look that bad. Sure, it's an old house, colonial and all of that, but the couple that bought it is really super nice. And besides, that's what we're here for, right? To give that place the shot of youth it needs. Because, as our motto says..." he stopped and extended his hand, his signal for Duro to finish his sentence.  
  
In a annoyed voice Duro recited by heart: " _"At Agron and Duro's Handy Reno services, your problem is our to fix"_. Look, I know all of that, but really Agron, don't you think this job is a bit, you know..."  
  
"Of a big undertaking? Yeah, I know, believe me, I know." His brother said in a sigh and opened the car door and stepped outside, Duro following him to the sidewalk at the front of the house. Agron added with a smile: "But look at it this way: we've just started our business over three months ago, we've only been fixing small stuff here and there so far and only earning enough to make ends meet. This one's big, man! Sure there's a lot to do, but we'll get all of our meals paid and if we give good enough results, we might actually get our names out there in the renovation business. Plus...a little birdy has told me, that we might be getting more than twenty 'grand each for the whole thing..."  
  
Duro's eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning and Agron knew he had scored a top net goal with this argument. Because as far as Duro was concerned, being the one that was an expert with all of the paperwork and the accounting in their up starting company, nothing was worth more to him than what kind of cash they would receive in the end, while Agron was easily satisfied by just the smile on their clients' faces after a job well done. And so, a smile sprang up on the younger brother's face and with a clap on Agron's shoulder, he exclaimed:   
  
"So when do we start?"  
  
 ********************  
  
As Duro was busy unpacking their stuff out of the van, Agron entered the house, thanks to the spare key that Naevia, one of the owner of the house, had left him. She and her husband Crixus were staying at her mother's house while the renovations were going on to give Agron and Duro the much-needed space to do the much-needed work.  
  
He had taken a look once before at the house, when he was first offered the job two weeks before and Naevia was there to play hostess and indicate the whats and the hows (especially the how muches), but it had been just a quick looksie and he hadn't had the time to really examine as much of the interior as much has he would have liked. But now he had all of the time and the liberty of the world and, as he checked out Naevia's list of things needed to be done, he also waltzed through every room and took a gander of the work ahead:  
  
 **-** Replace the leaking faucets in the bathroom  
 **-** New cabinets for the kitchen  
 **-** Master bedroom needs a new ceiling fan (along with the wiring that comes with it)  
 **-** The roof of the garage outside needs a bit of fixing up  
 **-** The guest room needs a new color of paint  
  
And as he checked everything out, he had to agree with Naevia on one point that they had talked about earlier: this place needed a *lot* or work, it was a complete mess. A lot of things were either filled with cobwebs, dusty, leaky or simply rotten. The floor even creaked whenever he would take a step on it. No wonder the couple got it even cheaper than their initial asking price. He even wondered for a moment if only one month would be enough to do all that was needed to be done. But, they had been hired for a reason and Agron knew that he and his brother could do everything under the estimated time. And, after everything done, Naevia and Crixus would finally be able to move into their new home after searching all of this time.  
  
"Agron? Could you help me out here dude,  please? I don't wanna be the only one unpacking stuff!" Duro's voice said from the opened front door and breaking Agron's train of thoughts.  
  
Turning his head and rubbing his hands together, Agron smiled at his brother:   
  
"Let's get to work."  
  
 ***************  
  
"Throw it up, throw it up, watch it all fall out. Pour it up, pour it up, that's how we ball out." sang Agron out loud, paint roller in one hand and headphones over his ears. He had taken upon himself to do the easiest job first, which was repainting the guest room, while leaving Duro in the kitchen to start measuring up the space he would need to make the brand new wooden cabinets. He had changed into his old overalls and was now hard at work, coating the wall with some primer over the deep red that now looked like rust after years of being there. His choice of color for the room: a nice bright purple to go along with the brand new bed sheets Naevia had just bought and had shown Agron in his first visit.

As he glided his roller across the wall in front of him and still sang some Rihanna, his eyes began darting out across the room and his vision soon fell upon a full-length wall mirror that was fixed upon one of the adjacent walls. Its frame had been carved from a deep-red wood, probably mahogany, and from his point of view he could see the reflection of the tree just outside the window. Dropping his paint roller in its container, Agron became curious about the mirror and took a few steps toward it, wanting a closer look. He didn't know why he was suddenly so transfixed by a simple mirror though, he had seen a lot of them in its day and this one looked no different than all of the others.

And as he came in front of it and looked at it more closely, he was proven right: it was definitely a mirror that looked just like any ordinary mirrors: with its wooden frame, the screws on the wall that had been put there to keep it stable, the long-haired, dark-eyed, shocked-looking man looking back at him...  
  
Wait... _what?_


	2. The new rooomates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who's on the other side of the mirror? Well you get to find out...

_Meanwhile..._  
  
A truck pulled into the driveway just beside a huge, colonial-style house. Inside were the belongings of the two men sitting at the front of the truck: an excited-as-a-puppy Varro, along with his old college buddy and new roommate, a nervous-looking Nasir.  
  
As they got out of the truck and looked at the house more closely, Nasir tugged at his friend's shirt sleeve. "You know, that place looks a little bit too big for just the two of us. Are you sure we're going to be able to make rent with just our salaries? Maybe we should have looked for an additional roommate..." Nasir asked, looking a bit worried at his friend.  
  
"No dude! It's rent-controlled! It's fine, don't worry about it. The couple that owns that house is actually super rich and their actual house is somewhere outside of the city by the ocean or something. This is actually just a secondary home when they're on vacation and when they're working, they let other people rent it for a super-low fee. At least, that's what the guy on the phone told me. And since he's supposed to be in psychiatry or some shit like that, I couldn't really understand everything he was saying with his big words and everything..." Varro responded, getting lost in thoughts. Nasir snapped his fingers in front of his face.  
  
"Hey, Earth to Varro here, you were saying?" Narro waved his hand, indicating his friend to continue.  
  
Varro's thoughts got back on track: "Right. So it's all furnished, it's got heat, water, electricity and everything! We only got to pay for our own stuff like cable and meals and all that stuff and with what you're making at the coffee shop and what I'm making at my dad's shop, I'm pretty sure we won't have to worry about money. At least here you'll be able to get back on your feet and collect enough doe until you get your own place."  
  
Nasir gave his friend a small smile of appreciation. Ever since he had been kicked out of his apartment three months before by what he thought was his friend Saxa, who wanted to live with her new boyfriend and not have him around as a third wheel, he had spend nights and days in his other friends' homes and couches, until he had ended up staying a few weeks living with Varro and his father.

After a bit of talking and looking around (and his dad wanting his son living on his own because apparently being 25 years old and living in your dad's basement wasn't really healthy for a grown man) they had finally found a place that had a super-cheap rent that belonged to a nice couple, at least that was how Varro had put it. And Nasir really wanted a place where he could live actually live like he wanted without some other people's parents watching over him and not spend too much so that he could earn enough to finally, maybe one day, live on his own and stop mooching off other people's hospitality.  
  
As Varro opened the front door and both men stepped inside, Nasir was a little bit stunned by the decorating choices hat the couple that owned the place had chosen. While it was a very nice place that was clean and the plumbing and furniture looked modern and in good condition, it was the color scheme that was a bit weird: everywhere he looked, not one vivid color was somewhere to be found. All of the walls were different shades of white, the floors were either painted black or a light grey and all of the furniture were all painted in different shades of these three colors. It was like he had stepped into an old 50's movie and he shivered, feeling a little bit lost somehow. To him, the absence of colors meant an absence of life, of warmth, of something he couldn't quite place...  
   
"Dude! You gotta see the bathroom! You're not gonna believe how big the shower is!" he heard Varro shout from another room and Nasir snapped out of his wondering thoughts and, shaking his head at how a kid his friend sounded by a simple shower, he followed the source of Varro's voice further into what was now his new home, at least for the time being.  
  
 *****************************  
  
As noon struck by and the pair had finally finished unpacking their stuff from the moving truck, Nasir was now surrounded by boxes in what he concluded must have been the guest room whenever the couple that owned this place were staying here, since it was smaller than the other bedroom of the house and less effort seemed to have been put into decorating it than the other one. Of course, as soon as they saw the other much-bigger, much nicer-looking bedroom (with a plasma TV and everything! Varro had shouted with joy), the other man just *had* to call dibs on it, leaving Nasir with no other choice than to take the only other room with a bed in it. And, as he tested it, it already felt much softer than the futon he had grown accustomed to rest on over the past few weeks.

So this place wasn't as nice as the other bedroom, who cared? At least he had an actual bed once again and, just like the rest of the house, it was devoid of any colors, but as Nasir unpacked his first box, he decided to make it his mission to bring some of it back into this place. And that would start by hanging his vintage posters on the white walls and after that, who knew? Maybe a new color on the ceiling would be nice to look at...  
  
 _"Ooohhoohhh! Money on my mind, money money on my mind!"_  
  
The sudden unknown voice coming to his ears made him startled and drop the rolled-up poster from his shaking hands. What the hell was that? He had definitely just heard someone, or something sing, but where? And who? And it definitely wasn't Varro that did this, because he had heard enough of his shower-singing to know that he didn't sound even closely at what he had just heard. But if it wasn't Varro that he had just heard, then what in the hell...  
  
 _"Throw it up, throw it up, watch it all fall out!"_  
  
There it was again! But where did it come from?! As Nasir turned on himself to locate the sound of the noise, he spotted a full-length wall mirror that was fixed on the wall just beside his bed. Why he hadn't noticed it when he had first entered the bedroom he didn't know, but sure enough, there it was: with its wooden frame and its sleek shiny surface. And as he approached it carefully, a little bit frightened by what was going on, the voice that he had heard once again made itself known:  
  
 _"Ooohh Oooohh! All I see is signs, all I see is dollar signs."_  
  
Nasir swallowed nervously. At least he was sure of one thing, whatever or whoever was singing was coming from the mirror right in front of him. And, as he finally took his last steps and stood in front of the mirror, he couldn't believe his eyes:  
  
It definitely was his new bedroom that he was looking at, but somehow it looked different. The walls looked old and worn-out and had actual colors on them. The floor was made entirely out of wood and, as he looked down at his own feet, he only saw black tiles. What in the world was he looking at? Was this even the same house?  
  
But what shocked him the most wasn't the decor, it was actually the fact that there were no reflection of himself looking back at him, there was nothing except for an empty bedroom. But, if it was empty, then where the hell did that singing voice came from? What exactly was he looking at?  
  
His answer came from a creaking noise just a few steps away from him. He turned his eyes to the right and to his much utter shock, he didn't found himself looking at his own face but at the face of a complete stranger and as the other man's eyes set upon him and went wide, he knew that the stranger was probably thinking the exact same thing that he was at that particular moment:  
  
 _What in the fuck was going on?_


	3. What is going on?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have their first conversation and try to find out what exactly is going on.

"Wh-what's going on? Who-who are you?" whispered a now very scared Nasir, looking not into his own eyes, but into the eyes of somebody he had never met before in his life.   
  
"I was just about to ask you the same thing." responded an also frightened Agron, wondering why he was standing in front of someone he didn't know instead of himself and why this person looked to be in a different room than he was, covered in black and white and in good condition instead of the old bedroom he himself was standing with its deep-red walls and creaking floor.  
  
"Look, I'm just going to count to three and you're...whatever the hell you are is just going to disappear, alright?" Nasir said and then closed his eyes but when he reopened them after three seconds, Agron was still standing in front of him, although now his mood had changed from frightened to a bit angry. "Oh, you're still here." sighed Nasir.  
  
"What do you mean "You're still here"? By any means, *you're* the hallucination between you and me, buddy. So, please, do the both of us a favor and skedaddle out of there, okay? I've got no time for you, I've got renovations to do in this place." says an aggravated Agron with his hands on his hips.  
  
"And what do you mean, renovations? This is my bedroom bucko and as far as I can tell, there's no need for any renovations in this place." said an now also exasperated Nasir, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Agron's eyes widened and he replied: "This ain't your bedroom! This is the guestroom of the house that I've been hired to renovate before a couple moves in a couple of weeks from now. And from what I've seen from pictures, you're not the lady's husband. And they haven't told me anything about a third person living here, so I'm sorry to say, you're the one who's in the wrong here."   
  
With a puff of the lips, Nasir said: "Oh yeah? Well I'm actually renting this place with a college friend of mine. And the owners haven't said anything about anybody coming to fix this place, so I'm sorry to say that *you* are the one in the wrong here."  
  
Thinking for a bit, Agron asked the man on the other side of the mirror: "Wait, what is the address where you're at?"  
  
"555 Westingburgh Street, Vesuvius City. You?" replied Nasir.  
  
"The same." replied a now once again frightened Agron. He didn't understand what was going on here. How could he be talking to another person he didn't know, who seemed to be in the exact same place that he was standing right now, but had also no idea who he was too?  
  
 _Unless...._  
  
As if they thought the exact same thing at the exact same time, both Agron and Nasir sprinted out of their respective bedroom and out into their respective hallway. Maybe there was a hidden place just behind the mirror that connected the two bedrooms. Maybe they were in fact in the exact same house, just not in the exact same place. Maybe there was a logical explanation to all of this...  
  
And both of their hopes were quickly dashed when, calculating where the mirror should be situated and they both went to look for a hidden passage or something like it, all Agron could find was a thin wooden wall and all Nasir could find on his side was...an empty closet. And no matter how much the both of them went back into the bedroom, checked where the mirror could connect to the adjoining room and came back, they didn't find anything. No secret passage, no hidden room, nothing. Both came back to the bedroom and in front of the mirror, a little bit defeated and still very confused by what was going on.  
  
"So, looks like we're in the same room..."  
  
"And in the same house..."   
  
"....maybe just not at the same time?" exclaimed Nasir, an idea striking him. "Maybe this mirror is actually a portal to different periods..."  
  
"...And one of us is actually in the past and one is in the future of the house!" Agron said, beaming that this might explain everything, but quickly shook his head. "Wait, this is stupid! We're not in a Sci-Fi movie, there's no way we're in some time-traveling thingy here." He added in a huff.  
  
"Well, do you have a better explanation, then?" asked a once-again irritated Nasir.  
  
"Well...hum...I mean, uh...." Agron started to reply, but gave up at the lack of argument he tried to find.  
  
"That's what I thought. Look, we've gotta eliminate every possibilities here and as crazy as it sounds, maybe we are in fact in two different times periods and that's why we're like this." said Nasir.   
  
"But how do we know for sure?" asked Agron dumbly, then he put his forehead against his forehead, chastasizing himself for not thinking this sooner. "I've got it! What's the date over on your side?" he asked the other man.  
  
"September 25th. You?" asked Nasir, somehow dreading the answer.  
  
"Me too. What year?" asked Agron and his shoulders sagged when Nasir replied:  
  
"2013. How about..."  
  
"2013 here too." Agron cut the other man, sighing in defeat that a possible explanation had been eliminated. He looked at the other and noticed that Nasir looked as hopeless as he was. He tried to offer a solution: "Look, maybe whatever's going on is only temporary. I say from now on we just ignore each other, pretend all of this never happened and everything will go back to normal. What do you say? "  
  
He saw Nasir think about it for a second and respond: "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's better to pretend that whatever this is," he gestured toward the mirror in front of him. "never existed and just go on with our normal lives. Just, forget about everything..."  
  
"Yeah, just forget about everything.. So, while it was nice meeting you ,whoever you are, I've still got a job to do so..." Agron said.  
  
To which Nasir responded: "Yeah! And I've still got some boxes to unpack and stuff to hang, so...bye, I guess?"   
  
"Yeah...bye." Agron replied with a little bit of disappointment in his voice despite himself.  
  
And so the both of them stepped away from the mirror and went to their respective tasks ahead, Agron not noticing that the entire time he had talked to Nasir, the floor beneath him had stopped creaking and Nasir hadn't noticed that his floor had now tiny specs of blue in the middle of the sea of black.


	4. Headaches and pouring rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nasir is left with his thoughts and while at work, his mind begins to play tricks on him.

All throughout the afternoon, both Agron and Nasir finished their respective jobs, with Agron finishing applying the primer on every surfaces of the fours walls of the guestroom while Nasir finally hung up his last poster by the foot of his bed. From time to time, when they knew the other wasn't looking, they would take a peak by the mirror to see if the other was there and if whatever that was causing them to see each other was still working and much to their disappointment (or maybe secretly their hope), they could see the other man through the mirror, but both tried as hard as they could to ignore the other's presence.  
  
 *******************  
  
By the end of the afternoon, Nasir suddenly remembered that he had other things to do that day that didn't include a mirror and an unknown man and so by around 3PM and with one last longing look at his bedroom before leaving the house, he found himself covering the night shift at his good old job at the city's coffeehouse. He had worked there...well he didn't remember how long he had been working there but it definitely seemed like forever. He was now busy polishing one of the metallic sugar trays with his towel for what seemed the hundredth time that day, lost in thoughts about everything that happened that morning.  
  
"Hello? Earth to Nasir! Are you okay" asked a concerned Chadara, one of his coffee shop colleagues and greatest friend, snapping her fingers in front of him to break him out of his reverie.  
  
It worked and Nasir looked at his friend with a smile and replied:  
  
"Oh! Oh, sorry, Chadara. Yeah, I'm okay. Don't worry about it."  
  
"Are you sure? You look like you've been lost in your own head all night long. Is something bothering you?" his friend asked, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  
  
He petted her small hand with a smile. "No, no, it's nothing, really. I'm fine." he reassured her.  
  
"Okay good, because there's a woman at Table 12 who wants a medium latté with 2 sugars in it." Chadara replied, pointing to the designated table.  
  
"I'm on it!" exclaimed Nasir, putting his towel and sugar tray on the counter and starting to prepare the requested drink. As he picked up the coffee mug and pot, he saw the deformed reflection of his face on its metallic surface and somehow, this made him think about the man in the mirror once again.  
  
God, how could he ignore the guy and what was going on when he had so many questions and zero answers? Who was this man that he had encountered in front of his bedroom mirror? Where did he come from? How come he had never seen him around here before? Surely if he said he was in the same house that he was, in the same city that he was, they would have met in person sometime in the past. Had they? He would remember if they did. God, how could something as trivial as a mirror make him feel so confused, so lost, so...  
  
"God!" Here it was again. Nasir dropped the coffee mug and the sound of porcelain shattering on the ground brought the attention of everyone in the shop, including a panicked Chadara. But Nasir didn't pay attention to any of them, he couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything, the blinding pain inside of his head too much for him to handle at the moment.  
  
He hadn't had an episode in almost two weeks. He thought that they were gone for good this time. Those splitting headaches he got from time to time. He had gone to the doctors to treat them, he really had and all they could do was prescribe him some migraine medicine but even that didn't work. All he could do whenever they happened was to ride them out until everything calmed down. Which right now was impossible, the pain was so intense. He tried everything the doctors had told him to do: rub his temples, take deep breaths, but nothing worked. For long intense minutes, all he could see was white, all he could taste was blood in his mouth, all he could hear was a loud ringing noise that was extremely deafening. Wait, not a ringing noise, but a loud, long, shrieking honking noise. As if...  
  
And as suddenly, just as fast it had first appeared, the pain in his temples went away, leaving Nasir on his knees on the floor of the coffeehouse, his head in his hands, gulping deep breaths after deep breaths, as if he had suddenly gotten out of a pit of water and he was alright now. And as he blinked his eyes open and took one last calming breath, he realized that he had caused quite a scene around him despite himself. Everyone looked at him with concern on their faces, especially Chadara who was now leaning against him and trying to talk to him:  
  
"Nasir! Nasir! Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah. I'm-I'm fine Chadara. Just had one of my migraines, is all. Could you help me up, please?" Nasir pleaded his colleague, not wanting people's curious and concerned eyes on him anymore.  
  
"Yeah, sure, hold on." and with that, Chadara took Nasir's waiting hand and helped him up and together, they wobbled into the back store of the shop, where Nasir gingerly sat down on a empty milk case to try to regain all of his senses once and for all.  
  
"Are you sure you're okay Nasir? Do you want to go to the hospital? I'm sure I can cover your shift for the rest of the..." started Chadara, wanting to help her friend as much as she could, but Nasir put a hand up to stop her and replied:  
  
"No, no. I'm okay, no need to go to the hospital. I'll schedule a meeting with my doctor tomorrow and tell her what's up. Just give me a couple of minutes and I'll go back out, okay?"  
  
"O...Okay, if you're entirely, 100% sure you'll be able to make it through the rest of your shift, because otherwise..." Chadara started but Nasir once again interrupted her:  
  
"I'm absolutely, 100% sure I'll be fine. Now go out there and do your stuff. I'll be there in 10 minutes tops, promise."  
  
And with that, Chadara went on her way, leaving Nasir alone to his own thoughts and to try and  regain his composure.  
  
 *****************  
  
Thankfully, the end of Nasir's work shift happened without any other incidents and now he and Chadara were getting out of the coffee shop, having finished closing up for the day. It was now around 8PM and night had settled in, a light drizzle now dripping from the sky. Nasir hadn't brought an umbrella because it was still packed in a box somewhere in his new house, but luckily for him, Chadara had brought hers to share, which he was now holding while Chadara was locking the front door of the coffee shop. Suddenly, she patted the inside of her coat and cursed out loud.  
  
"Shit, I forgot my wallet in the back store. Could you wait a couple of minutes while I go back in there and get it? Won't be long, pinky swear." Chadara asked her friend and with a smile, Nasir agreed.  
  
"Sure, I'll be here, waiting for you, as usual." laughed Nasir, making Chadara struck her tongue out at him while she unlocked the door once again and went inside to retrieve her stuff.  
  
Nasir took a deep breath and, still holding Chadara's umbrella in his hands, looked around. It really was a nice night, beside the little bit of rain that was falling down. Maybe he could have time to go catch a movie or something before going home, or maybe go somewhere to get a late bite...  
  
Suddenly, the light drizzle of rain that had been pouring down on him became stronger. He thanked whatever god above he had Chadara's umbrella to keep him dry, because right now he would be drenched to the bones, just like that tall figure over there...  
  
Someone was standing a few feet away from him, a bit taller than him, but he couldn't decipher his or her face because the rain was so strong now that he could hardly see what was in front of him. That poor person was only wearing a trench coat over his or her broad shoulders and nothing else and looked like he or she was getting pelted on by the pouring rain. Nasir, being the helpful soul that he was, took a few steps and was about to ask him or her if they could share his umbrella together, when...  
  
"Nasir!"  
  
A hand on his shoulder made Nasir startled and as he turned around, he realized that the formerly hard pouring rain had returned to its former light drizzle and when he turned back toward the direction of the figure he was approaching, he realized that he or she was gone, as if the person had disappeared into the night.  
  
"Nasir, are you okay?" asked a once again concerned Chadara and this time, instead of trying to put her fears to rest, Nasir couldn't help himself but ask her:  
  
"Did you see someone else besides me when you came out of the shop?'"  
  
"No, why?" responded Chadara, raising an eyebrow in confusion.  
  
"Because I swear, while you were gone, it really started to pour out there and I saw somebody getting drenched right over there." Nasir explained, pointing to where he had seen the tall figure.  
  
"Nasir, it's been five minutes since I got my stuff. All I've seen since I've been out was you staring into space at something that wasn't there and clutching my umbrella as if a waterfall was falling down on you. And it wasn't, believe me. It took me two minutes to get in and out of the shop and it's impossible that in just two minutes, the rain would suddenly become torrential and then become light again. I would have heard it from inside the coffee house, believe you and me." Chadara replied, wondering what the hell was up with her friend tonight.  
  
"But...but I was so sure..." Nasir started, a bit shaken at what he had thought he had just seen and what Chadara had just told him, but this time it was his friend who interrupted him:  
  
"Well I for one think it's just your mind playing tricks on you. Probably something left from the migraine or something. So tell you what, why don't you just go home and get a good night sleep? We'll talk in the morning, okay?" Chadara offered, taking Nasir into a tight hug, which the other responded to.  
  
"Okay. Goodnight." he replied when he let her go and with that, Chadara waved at him and went on her way, leaving Nasir once again alone with his thoughts.  
  
Maybe she was right, maybe it was just residual stuff from his migraine and his mind really was playing tricks on him. Was it?


	5. Cherry lights and strange showers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's see how Agron is doing on his side of things...

_Meanwhile..._  
  
After Agron had finished putting on the primer on the guestroom's walls, he decided to take a much-needed break and returned home to the apartment/office that he was sharing with Duro. Plus, he really needed some time to get his mind around what had happened that morning, with the mirror and the unknown man and everything. But he also knew he would have to return later that night, because there was still some painting needed to be done in said guest room.  
  
As he unlocked the door and walked inside, he made his presence known: "Duro! I'm back! How did it go at the store?" While he had been hard at work on his room, his brother had made a trip to the nearby hardware store to pick up a few missing supplies for the renovations.  
  
At the sound of Agron's voice, Duro's head popped out from the frame of the living room door and he beamed at his brother: "They had everything on our list, dude. We're 100% good to go now! Plus...you gotta come take a look at what I found!"  
  
Agron winced a little at the possibilities of what Duro could have found to make him sound so excited. As he stepped into the living room, he found himself face to face with his grinning brother...and a police cherry light.  
  
"What in the hell are you doing with that thing?" asked Agron, his face contorted in pure confusion.  
  
"I got it in the discount bin! Only ten bucks, can you believe it?!" exclaimed Duro as he sat the object on the coffee table and looked at it proudly.  
  
"And what, I can't believe I'm asking you this, what do you plan to do with that?" asked a reticent Agron, a bit dreading his brother's answer.  
  
Duro blushed a bit at the question. "Well, it's actually for me and my girlfriend." he replied, looking down shyly at the floor.  
  
Agron rolled his eyes and replied: "Of course it's for you and your girlfriend. The one you've met just two weeks ago and it was just love at first sight, I know! You've told me time after time after time!"  
  
Duro looked at Agron a little bit offended and said: "Hey! I'll have you know that she's a very classy lady and even if it's just been two weeks, we are very happy together."  
  
"Yeah, classy enough to have a kink for police sirens, right?" Agron asked his brother, to which Duro scratched his neck and said nothing, not knowing what to answer.  
  
Finally, he decided to change the subject: "Look, she's very very nice and very very good looking. Plus, she's dying to meet you!"  
  
Agron beamed a little at that revelation. "She does?" he asked, always happy when people wanted to met him.  
  
"Oh yeah, I've been saying nothing but good things about my great, hard-working big brother!" Duro said with a smile, slapping a hand on his brother's shoulder. He insisted a little bit: "Come on, give her a chance, I know everything seems to be going fast between us but trust me, dude, I've never met anybody like her. If I set the three of us to meet soon, please tell me you're going to go, please?" asked Duro, batting his eyes playfully at Agron, which received him a playful shove on the shoulder.  
  
"Alright! Alright, I'll give her a chance, but she better treats you nicely, 'cause otherwise..." Agron warned.  
  
"I know, I know. She's going to get a dose of my protective, big brother. Believe me, I know. So, want to see what this little baby can do?" Duro said, pointing at the cherry light on the table.  
  
Agron sighed, wanting to get this over with, and nodded.  
  
Clapping his hands together in excitement, Duro went over to the light switch and turned the living room dark. He then went over to the coffee table and with a push of a button, turned on the police cherry and illuminated the walls of the living room and the brothers' faces with its blue twirling light.

Well, Agron had to give it to his brother, it did create an atmosphere of some kind, although in his mind it didn't really make him feel horny, it actually made him a bit dizzy, with the going around and around of the blue and the blue and the blue and the blue and the red and the blue and the red and the blue and the red and the blue...  
  
 _"It's alright sir! We're going to get you out of there!"_  
  
"Gah!" Agron suddenly yelled out, holding his head between his hands and closing his eyes tightly, his temples suddenly throbbing and feeling like he was about to throw up.  
  
He heard a concerned Duro right beside him ask: "Agron, 'you okay?"  
  
To which he took a deep breath, trying to calm his sudden headache and wave of nausea, and responded: "Yeah, it's just that your thing is making me nauseous, could you please turn it off?", a request that Duro responded to very quickly and soon, after sitting down on the couch and feeling much better thanks to calming breaths, Agron once again opened his eyes.  
  
He saw that Duro was now sitting next to him and was rubbing his back. "Dude, you really scared me for a minute there! Are you sure you're okay?" Duro asked his brother out of concern for his well-being, to which Agron smiled at and patted his brother's shoulder, his hands having left his formerly pulsing head.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. It's just that your police thingy, whew! Gave me quite a effect there!" he answered, trying to turn the situation into a joke. But Duro still looked concerned for his big brother.  
  
"Look, if you need to go to the hospital or something, let me know. The van is down front and I can get you there in ten minutes tops if you..." Duro started but Agron put his hand up to stop him mid-sentence.  
  
"And I keep telling you that I'm fine! No need to go see a doctor. I just got a bit dizzy, that's all. Look, I'm going to go and take a shower and then I gotta go back to the house to begin the first coat of paint in the guestroom." Agron said, feeling good enough to get off the couch and began walking toward the bathroom.

Turning his head toward his brother once more, he smiled at Duro and added, while pointing at the coffee table: "I'm going to be gone all evening and you'll have the whole place for yourself and your girlfriend to do...whatever you want to do with that police thingy there. So please, stop worrying about me and just go have your fun, okay?"  
  
Duro seemed to ponder this for a second or two and with a nod of the head, he acquiesced: "Alright, if you think you're well enough to go do some work on your own. But if you need help in any way..."  
  
"You'll be the first one I call, I promise." Agron finished for him. And with that and one last small smile at his brother, he made his way to the bathroom.  
  
 ******************  
  
As Agron was washing himself off, his mind began to wonder off over what had happened over the previous hours. God, what a weird day he'd had: from seeing people inside mirrors to feeling like his skull was going to tear itself in two just because of a blue twirling light, things had gone quite crazy in a hurry.

As he leaned his head against the glass door of the shower and sighed, he could feel all of the tension that those events and all of the hard work he had done during the day had caused just make his back feel like it was covered in knots and as he closed his eyes and tried to make the pounding water above him make him relax, no matter which way he turned, nothing was making the aches of his back go away. And now, with the bathroom door closed and the water so hot, steam was billowing all throughout the room, making things difficult to see.  
  
Agron was about to turn off the shower and get through the rest of the evening with an aching back, when he heard the sound of the bathroom door open and light steps getting closer and closer to the glass door that Agron was hiding behind.  
  
With his eyes still closed because of the water running down his head, Agron called out: "Duro? If you need the shower, just give me a minute okay? I'll be out of you hair in a jiffy, I promise."  
  
When he heard no response from the person occupying the bathroom along with him, Agron called out once again: "Duro? You okay, man?" No response once again and he was about to open his eyes and the glass shower door when the steps that he previously heard once again started and Agron unmistakably heard the sound of the shower door being opened and closed, with the light sound of the footsteps coming toward him and stopping just behind him.  
  
"Duro? What are you doing?" Agron once again called, curious as to why his brother would join him in the shower, when a laugh, the most irresistible, melodious, gorgeous laugh Agron had ever heard made itself known right next to his ear.  
  
 _"Do you really think your brother would get naked in the shower with you? Unless you want him here instead of me?"_ a voice whispered, making Agron smile despite himself.  
  
"Don't be stupid. Of course I want you here. I always want you with me." Agron said, the words coming from the very bottom of his heart, even though he had no idea whom he was addressing them to.  
  
He felt the sensation of soft lips on his shoulder, making his smile grow even wider and he felt fingertips beginning to touch and massage his poor hurting back.  
  
 _"My, my, you poor thing! All these knots in your poor back! Want me to make it feel better?"_ the voice once again called out and Agron replied with a nod of the head:  
  
"Yes, please!" And with that, the pressure of the fingertips on Agron's back increased and the tall man moaned out in pure ecstasy, feeling all of the aches and the worries from the beginning of the day just disappear from his mind and his body.  
  
The light touches on his back soon came to a stop and the voice once again whispered right next to him with a soft laugh: _"Good thing you keep me around to make you relax, huh?"_  
  
"Oh please, you know I keep you around for more than that!" laughed Agron, his eyes still closed but now completely relaxed and at ease.  
  
 _"Oh yeah? And what can you do to convince me on that particular point? Hmm, Agron?"_ the voice said softly right into his ear and with a soft smile, Agron replied:  
  
"Well, you could begin by-"  
  
"Agron?"  
  
Agron quickly opened his eyes and was startled when he realized that nobody was in the shower with him. He quickly opened the glass shower door and took a peak outside, to find out that the person calling out his name was a once-again worried-looking Duro, his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.  
  
"Agron, what are you doing man? You've been in the shower for over half-an-hour and when I come in to see what was taking so long, I hear you talking to yourself. Are you sure you're still not loopy from earlier?" asked Duro, now looking very worried about the well-being of his older brother.  
  
Finally turning off the water and putting a towel around his waist, Agron made his way out of the shower and reassured his brother one more time.: "No, I am still not loopy from earlier. I am completely, undeniably fine. So stop worrying so much about me, okay? You've got a date to prepare and I've got to go back to work. So if you don't mind...." he pointed at the bathroom door, making Duro know that he needed some time alone to dry up and get ready.  
  
"Okay, okay, I'll stop, sorry. Just don't come back home too late, promise?" Duro asked his brother as he made his way out of the door.  
  
With a gentle shove and a final smile, Agron responded: "Promise." and with that, he closed the bathroom door behind Duro, leaving once again by himself and with his thoughts.  
  
Taking a good hard look at himself in the mirror, Agron ran a hand through his wet hair and sighed. Now he was hearing voices and feeling touches that belonged to no one. Maybe Duro was right, maybe he was still a bit loopy...


	6. Sweet dreams are made of...what exactly?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get to know each other and then dream a very strange dream....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there might be some corniness ahead, I'd would like to apologize in advance for that, but the guys decided to do it this way, so this way I did. Hope you still enjoy this chapter even if you find it a little bit sappy. :)

And so both of the guys returned to the house that evening, Nasir to take a long, hot shower and then go straight to bed and Agron to apply the first coat of purple paint that the walls of the guest-room desperately needed.  
  
As Nasir entered his bedroom, he saw the mirror in the corner of his eye. He stopped in his tracks and stared at it for a good, long moment. While he and the man on the other side had both agreed to ignore the other and pretend nothing that had happened that morning had indeed happened, the more Nasir thought about it, the more he felt in his heart that he just couldn't do it. His thoughts had been flooded with the unknown man on the other side of the mirror all throughout the day and even though strange things had been happening to him that evening and he knew fiddly squat about the stranger, he was still drawn to the other man and wanted to get to know him, wanted to know about the seemingly different world that lied through the other side of the glass.

He wanted to hear the other man's soothing voice tell him everything about himself and that other world. He wanted to see if his laugh was as melodious than he pictured it and if he always ran his hand through his hair like that whenever he was stressed out, something Nasir had found to be quite endearing.   
  
As Agron entered the guestroom and set the gallon of purple paint he had brought with him down on the floor, his eyes scanned the walls of the room and stopped when they spotted the mirror. Thinking about what happened throughout the day, Agron sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He knew that he had agreed with the stranger on the other side of the mirror to ignore the other and forget everything that had happened that morning, but his heart was telling him otherwise.

Despite everything, despite the fact that he was probably going crazy; seeing things and hearing things that weren't really there, something still drew him to the unknown man and the other world that apparently existed behind him.

He wanted to learn more about the other man, what made him laugh, what made him cry, just to see if his smile was as beautiful as he imagined it to be and if his eyes always shone like that whenever he spoke.  
  
He was about to step in front of the mirror to see if it still showed the other world and the unknown man when a voice coming from it gave him his answer:  
  
 _"Hello? Hello! Anybody there?"_  
  
Nasir was now in front of the mirror and glanced around the seemingly empty bedroom on its other side. Nasir sighed, the stranger was probably gone for good and all that was left was just an empty, hollow bedroom. He was about to step away from the mirror and go get his shower when he heard a small cough coming from the other side and it was with renewed hope that he saw the man that he had previously met that morning step in front of his side of the mirror and look at him with a sheepish look on his face.  
  
"Hello." Agron said, looking down shyly at the floor and then back at Nasir.   
  
"Hi." responded Nasir with a small smile.  
"So...looks like we're not really good at pretending stuff don't exist, huh?" Agron asked the other man while scratching his neck, a bit embarrassed.  
  
"Yeah, I guess we're not." Nasir replied, playing with a strand of his long hair, a bit ashamed to have broken an agreement so soon.  
  
"...well..."  
  
"...hmm-hmm..."  
  
A moment of awkward silence fell between the two, neither men not knowing how to start a conversation with someone who apparently lived in a parallel world than their own and could only communicate with the other through a full-length wall-mirror.   
  
"I guess...we could start by introducing ourselves for starters?" Nasir proposed, to which Agron's eyes lit up and his face broke into a small grin.  
  
"Oh yeah! Yeah, that could be start." Agron agreed with the other man and with his smile widening, he added: "I'm Agron. Nice to meet you."  
  
To which Nasir smiled back and replied: "I'm Nasir. 'Glad to meet you too."  
  
 ******************  
  
Four hours later, it was like Agron and Nasir had known each other their entire lives. They talked about everything: from their childhood, to their actual jobs and hopes for the future, and nothing: what movies they liked the most, funny stories about their families and other nontrivial things but still stuff that the both of them found absolutely fascinating about the other. Agron loved the way Nasir would laugh at his silly jokes and impressions of the members of his crazy family and Nasir adored how Agron's green eyes would sparkle when he would listen to his own stories. 

They didn't know where the other came from and just how the both of them could communicate, but quite honestly, they didn't care. They were having the time of their lives with a handsome, sweet and interesting person and the trivial stuff and maybe even non-logical stuff didn't really matter all of that much.  
  
They were in the middle of yet another family stories involving Agron's uncle and a blueberry pie when Agron felt a sudden urge. They were now sitting Indian-style on the floor, talking to one another in front of the mirror more comfortably.   
  
"Oh geez, I gotta go right now, I've got a bit of an urgency coming up. Wait for me?" Agron said, pointing at the hallway just behind him where Nasir could see the bathroom was situated.   
  
Nasir smiled and replied: "Oh yeah, sure! Sure. Go ahead, I'll be right here waiting for your anticipated return!" At which Agron stuck his tongue out playfully and got up to go the bathroom to take care of some business. After he finished what he had to do, he washed up his hands in the sink.

Closing the faucet and drying his hands with a nearby paper towel, he noticed that the dripping water that had been coming from the faucet ever since he had arrived that morning wasn't leaking anymore when he had closed it off. Funny, he thought, maybe the plumbing isn't in that bad of a shape as the new owners of the house had previously thought. Yawning, Agron looked at his watch. Oh, _shit!_  
  
Meanwhile, Nasir had gotten up and stretched out his numb limbs from sitting all of that time. He looked around his bedroom that he had lit up with only a lamp because night had settled in and noticed that with the way the yellow color of the light bulb, the white of the walls and the shadows of the lamp shade were all mixing together, it almost seemed like his bedroom was filled with lively colors of blue and green all around it. He shook his head and laughed, probably his overrunning imagination playing with his eyes again.   
  
He heard incoming steps from beside him and his smile returned when he saw Agron make his return from the bathroom.  
  
"Hey, listen, I just took a look at my watch and it's already past midnight." Agron said, pointing at his wrist with a small frown.  
  
"Really? Shit! I got an early shift at my job and I gotta go see my doctor about something." Nasir said, his eyes widening and a frown appearing on his own face.  
  
"Tell me about it. I promised my brother I wouldn't return home too late and I still gotta come back here first thing tomorrow morning because one of the future owners of the house is coming to see how things are going." Agron said from his side.  
  
Nasir's smile returned once more. "So, maybe I'll see you again tomorrow?" he asked hopefully, wanting to see the other man once again and learn more about him.   
  
Agron smiled back and replied: "Yeah, probably, if we can catch each other during our busy day." Agron hoped that they would catch each other in the middle of everything they had to do, because he for one was fascinated, and maybe a little infatuated, by the man on the other side of the mirror and wanted to see him again. With that, Agron went to turn and walk out of the guestroom. With one final smile and wave, he said: "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow? Goodnight Nasir."   
  
Nasir smiled, waved back and replied: "I hope so. Goodnight Agron." And with that, Agron left, the painting job he had scheduled that night completely forgotten, the gallon full of purple paint still by the guestroom door where it been left ever since Agron had first came in four hours earlier.   
  
And as Nasir went to bed and turned off his lamp, he saw that even without the yellow light bulb, the shadows on the walls and ceiling still gave the impression that all of his room was full of colors, which was impossible Nasir thought as he yawned and closed his eyes, since he had only had the time to hang up his posters and do nothing else to the room since he had first arrived that morning.       
  
**************  
  
 _Nasir was laying in the middle of the most beautiful field he had ever seen in his life, basking in the afternoon sun like he was in heaven, its sunrays tickling his skin and warming him up all over. He closed his eyes and smiled, feeling lucky to be alive and when his eyes opened once again and he turned his head to his right, his smile widened because laying next to him on the fleece blanket he had set out was the most gorgeous man he had ever seen in his life. His green eyes were full of laughter and love and as the man reached over and caressed his bare arm tenderly, his whole face just seemed to shine with those emotions._  
  
 _And as Nasir covered Agron's hand with his, he knew that his own face reflected what he was seeing._  
  
 _"Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?" Agron asked him with a tender smile._  
  
 _"Hmm, maybe once or twice. Or maybe a lot of times before. But it certainly doesn't hurt to hear it again." Nasir replied with his own smile. Reaching out and caressing Agron's face with a soft touch, Nasir added: "Did *I* ever tell you how much I love you?"_  
  
 _Closing his eyes and leaning into his love's touch, Agron's smile widened and he replied playfully: "Hmm, maybe once or twice, or maybe a lot of times before. But it certainly doesn't hurt to hear it again."_  
  
 _"Oh, god, you!" Nasir cried out with a laugh and he launched at the other man and together, they rolled around on the field of wheat, engaged in tickling war like they were a bunch of five-years old instead of grown men but that moment, they really didn't cared how old they looked, they only had thoughts and eyes for the other. Finally, with one final roll, Nasir was now pinning Agron on the ground, trying to make the other man submit._  
  
 _"Say uncle! Say uncle!" Nasir yelled out, knowing Agron's ticklish spots and giving him no mercy._  
  
 _"Alright, alright! Uncle, uncle! Please, stop!" Agron replied, laughing like an idiot._  
  
 _To which Nasir whooped put loud and pumped his fists into the air in victory. "Yes! I win! I finally made the great and unbeatable Agron submit! I am the winner and you are the loser!" he sang-sung like a child, making Agron laugh once again._  
 _Taking Nasir's raised fists with both of his hands, he made the other man come down and lay just beside him, and the pair cuddled up together in the warm sun and the wheat below them._  
  
 _After a while, Nasir turned his head toward his love and asked him: "Agron?"_  
  
 _"Hmm?"_  
  
 _"Do you...do you ever think about the future?" Nasir wondered out loud, making Agron scowl a bit._  
  
 _"What do you mean?" Agron asked him, running a hand gently up and down Nasir's arm._  
  
 _Nasir turned fully toward the other man and explained: "Well, where do you see yourself five years from now, ten years from now?"_  
  
 _"I dunno really, but I hope I'm still with you by then." Agron replied with a smile._  
  
 _Nasir's own smile softened and he replied: "I hope I'm still with you by then too."_  
  
 _"Why do you ask me that?" Agron wondered, wrapping his arms around Nasir and bringing him closer to him._  
  
 _Nasir ran a finger up Agron's chest and replied: "I dunno, I was just thinking. I've always done that ever since I was little, imagining what my ideal future would be like: what my ideal job would be like, what my ideal house would be like."_  
  
 _Pecking Nasir on the forehead and rubbing their noses together, Agron laid back and asked him: "And what would your ideal house be like?"_  
  
 _Putting his chin on Agron's chest and his hands under his head, Nasir replied: "Well, if I could live into any house I wanted, it would be a very big, spacy house. Where there would be colors everywhere you'd look and it would be the most inviting place that you would find on the planet. Can you see it Agron?" Nasir asked his love and, closing his eyes, Agron could indeed imagine that place._  
  
 _"Oh yeah, I can see it. It would be like those old-colonial style house where you would think nothing is working inside because it's so old, but then you'd be shocked when you'd open the font and found all kind of new and modern stuff in it. Like a brand-new dishwasher, a plasma TV, the most up-to-date plumbing that you could find and not one cobweb to be seen!_

 _And it would have the most amazing backyard where we could receive dozens, maybe hundreds of people if we wanted to!" Agron replied and opening his eyes and looking tenderly at Nasir, he added: "And it would be the most wonderful, ideal house, no, ideal home in the world because you'd be in it."_  
  
 _Grinning back at him, Nasir softly replied: "It would be my ideal home because you'd be in it too."  And with that, he closed his eyes and kissed Agron tenderly on the lips, to which the other man replied to with as much love and tenderness, with the wind blowing all around them and the big colonial-style house that they had imagined standing in the field just behind them._  
  
And that made both Agron and Nasir wake up in a start.


	7. Blood in the mirror and glass on the floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to get...intense....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: things get bloody up in here! Please be advised that there's a bit of blood in this chapter, just wanted to warn you!
> 
> Also, sorry if this chapter is so long, but I needed both of the boys to get to a certain point before going to the next one, so, sorry again! :)

"Coffee, Nasir?"  
  
"Oh god, yes! Thank you!"  
  
As Nasir eagerly sipped on the mocha that Varro had brandished under his nose the second he had came into the kitchen, his roommate was sitting down at the dinner table, busy reading the freshly-delivered newspaper. As Nasir sat down next to him to eat his daily dose of toasts, Varro turned the page of his reading apparatus and made a wincing face. "Oh sweet, Jesus!  
  
"What is it?" Nasir asked his friend, wanting to know the reason of his scrunching face.  
  
"Big car accident the other night. It says it was nasty: blood and glass everywhere, lord!" Varro responded, his face even more scrunchier.  
  
"Please, Varro! It's six in the morning and I'm trying to eat! I don't wanna hear about guts and body parts while I'm trying to digest my toast! Could we talk about something else, please?" Nasir asked his roommate in a warning voice, feeling a bit disgusted at what he was hearing.  
  
"Alright! Alright, don't have to be so moody about it." Varros mumbled dropping the newspaper and turning toward his friend. He asked him: "Why are you so cranky anyway? 'Trouble sleeping?"  
  
"No, not really. Just had a weird dream, that's all. But 'fell right back asleep afterwards." Nasir replied, stretching out his still tired limbs. He actually lied a little bit: he had spent the rest of the night turning around and around on his bed after waking up from that dream, but sleep never came back.  
  
"'Wanna talk about it?" Varro offered, but Nasir didn't really want to tell the tale of his past few days to his roommate, from the mirror to Agron and the weird stuff he was seeing and everything else, so he put his hand up in dismissal. "No, no, it's okay. I'm okay. I'm just going to go and get ready for work. You're gonna be okay on your side?" Nasir said, getting up from the kitchen table and putting his coffee mug on the countertop.  
  
"Yeah, yeah. 'Got some work needed to be done at the shop, so I'm probably going to gone all day." Varro responded, picking up his newspaper once again, but this time checking out the sports section.  
  
Nasir shook his head with a fond smile on his lips and went to pick up his keys from the counter. "By the way, loved what you did with the kitchen!" he commented, smiling at the apparent fresh paint job Varro had done to the walls of the kitchen, giving it an inviting feel with its blue and its green instead of the cold and uninviting feeling the previously white ones had given him when he had first saw them yesterday morning.  
  
Varro looked up from what he was reading, absolute confusion written on his face. "Did *what* to the kitchen?" he asked wearily, having no idea what Nasir was talking about.  
  
"You know, the walls! Isn't that why I didn't see you at all yesterday? Because you were busy painting them?" Nasir insisted, his smile still on his face but slightly wavering.  
  
Darting his eyes left and right, Varro replied: "I was gone all day because I was busy unpacking my shit and then I went grocery shopping! We moved here just yesterday, Nasir. How could I have time to paint all of the walls in just one afternoon while buying food and unpacking? I thought it was you that did all this when I saw the walls this morning!"  
  
Nasir's smile finally came off his face and he replied: "No, I didn't even *go* into the kitchen at all yesterday, less alone paint it."  
  
"Well then if it's not you and it's not me that did this..." Varro said, his eyes growing wide.  
  
Nasir looked at his watch and put his coat on. "Look, whatever or whomever that did this, I've got no time to think about it right now. They're waiting for me at the coffeehouse and I really don't wanna be late. Whatever thinking we gotta do about all of this will have to wait until I get back home tonight. So, I better get going. Will you be there tonight?"  
  
"I dunno, depends on how everything goes today." Varro replied, his nose back inside his newspaper.  
  
As Nasir turned around and made his way to the front door, he yelled out as he closed it: "Okay, bye Varro!"  
  
Putting the newspaper back on the kitchen table and smiling at himself, Varro simply replied a whispered: "Goodbye, Nasir." and had the other man looked over his shoulder, he would have noticed his roommate disappearing, leaving behind an empty chair and an empty kitchen.  
  
 *****************  
 _Meanwhile..._

  
"MORE Radio is reporting that the two occupants of the car, both in their mid-twenties, were-" a hard slap on the plastic top of his alarm clock was what made Agron stir from his sleep and get up from his bed. After that strange dream, he had thankfully gotten back to sleep, but had spent the rest of the night in a dreamless state, making him still a bit tired when he woke up. As he went to the kitchen of the apartment that he shared with Duro, the smell of freshly brewed coffee made him a bit less grumpy and he smiled at his brother when he made his way to their kitchen table.  
  
"So, big night last night? Did your girlfriend like the police light thingy?" Agron asked Duro with a smirk, nudging him in the ribs with his elbow while taking a long blissful sip of coffee. He laughed out loud when he saw his baby brother blushing a bit and staring shyly at the floor.  
  
"Well, yeah. It was actually a big hit actually. We had a great night together." Duro answered, looking back up at his brother with a happy smile.  
  
Agron patted his brother's shoulder and said: "I'm happy for you, Duro. She sounds like a great girl, weird kinks notwithstanding." At that, Duro slapped at the hand on his shoulder in a playful manner, got up and made his own cup of coffee.  
  
He then turned around and while drinking from his mug, he asked his big brother: "Actually, I talked with my girlfriend last night that you were willing to meet her and she was pretty excited about it. So I was wondering if you were doing anything for lunch? The three of us could meet up somewhere and grab a cup of coffee or something."  
  
Agron nodded and replied: "Uh sure, I'm sure the meeting with the owner will not last eternally, so I guess I'm free for lunch. Where would you like to go?"  
  
Duro smiled and as he went to put his mug on the counter, he answered: "Well my girlfriend says there's a nice coffee place a few minutes from here, but I forgot to ask her the address, text me after the meeting and I'll send it to you. I've got to get changed, since it's my day to go to the grocery store." With that, Duro walked to his bedroom and shut the door, while Agron put his own mug on the kitchen counter and went into the bathroom, feeling like his face needed a good shave before his meeting later that morning.  
  
 ******************  
  
As Agron applied the shaving cream all over his face, his thoughts went back to the previous night and his bonding time with Nasir. He really hoped he would see him again today, if he couldn't talk to him, at least see his gorgeous face and his shining smile. They had really connected in the time they had spent talking, it was like they understood each other on a deeper level than two people who had just met should.

It was like they knew each other for a very long time, knew what made the other laugh and tick just by looking at each other and not saying anything. But that was silly of course, they had just met yesterday and Agron would certainly remember meeting someone like Nasir before.  
  
Agron picked up the plastic razor in his hand and started to shave. Lowering his eyes for a moment, he laughed to himself. Yeah, all of this was silly, not remembering someone as great and as charming as Nasir would just be stupid. And they had so many things in common it was just crazy. It was like they were made for each other or something...  
  
 _Ouch!_  
  
A small drop of blood fell on his fingers.  
  
 _Great,_ Agron thought with a sigh, _I cut myself_. _I shouldn't lose myself in my thoughts so much when I'm handling a blade._ He ripped out a tiny piece of paper tissue and put it where he thought he had cut himself without looking into the bathroom mirror. _There, that should do it._  
  
He was about to continue shaving when he felt another warm drop on his fingers. Come on now, it was just a small cut and he had already taken care of it, so why was he still...  
  
His thoughts were interrupted when another warm drop, this time much bigger, came and fell on the palm of his hand. Then another one, then another, then another. When he looked at the hand that was holding the razor, he saw that it was now dripping in blood, some of it now starting to fall on the floor. Agron's breathing started to accelerate as he saw the blood. What in the world was going on here? Where was all this blood coming from? Why was he bleeding so-  
  
His answer came when he raised his head and saw his face in the mirror. It wasn't covered in shaving cream with a tiny piece of tissue paper on his skin like he thought it would be, no.  
  
Instead, he was watching in horror as his face was entirely covered in blood, from the tip of his hairline to the bottom of his chin. And now he knew where all of the dripping blood had come from: it was from the multitudes of bruises and cuts that decorated his cheeks, lips and forehead. He looked like he had been through a fight, like he had been through a wreck, like he had been...  
  
Why did the bathroom mirror seemed so small and was now round all of a sudden?  
  
 _"A...A-gron..."_  
  
The horrified scream rang all through the apartment, making Duro sprint out of his bedroom and make his way to the bathroom. When he arrived there, he saw his regularly bold and courageous big brother sitting on the floor near the bathroom mirror in the fetal position, shaking like a leaf and whimpering like a lost child, both of his hands covering his face.   
  
"Agron? What the fuck is going on!? I heard screaming and I went in here and what's wrong?" asked a very concerned Duro and as he bent down face-to-face with his brother, he could hear him talking to himself:  
  
"Oh god, oh god, please, please, help me. Please, someone, help us, please!"  
  
As Duro reached out to take one of Agron's hands off his face to see what was wrong with him, the other man whimpered loudly and tried to fight his brother off.  
  
"Somebody please, help us! Get us outta here, please!" yelled out Agron, struggling against Duro's strong grip, but then his cheek stung when his brother had no choice but to slap him hard across the face to snap him out of whatever trance he had been in.  
  
"Agron! What the fuck is wrong with you!? Who's " _us_ "? Why do you need help?" said a now frightened-looking Duro.  
  
Taking deep calming breaths after his mind went back to reality, Agron's eyes focused on his brother's face for the first time since the other man had first came in.  
  
"What- what are talking about? I-I don't remember..." responded a still shaking Agron.  
  
"What do you mean you don't remember?! I heard you screaming like a banshee and what do I find when I come in here? You on the floor crying and shaking like a scared five-year old! What the hell happened in here to make you like that?" said Duro, worried not just about his brother's physical health, but now his mental health as well.  
  
"I-I don't' know. I was shaving and then I saw blood all over my hand and then blood all over my face..." Agron said but stopped himself when he realized what he had seen in the mirror. "Oh god...." with a petrified look in his eyes, he touched his face with one of his hand and...nothing. Standing up, Agron looked into the bathroom mirror and it was in complete stupor that he saw not one trace of blood anywhere on his face, just shaving cream here and there and a tiny piece of tissue paper on his cheek where he had previously cut himself. Just like it should be. But then, what in the hell had just happened to him?  
  
Looking at his reaction with worried eyes, Duro asked him one more time: "Agron, are you okay? You're really freaking me out here."  
  
Taking a deep, soothing breath, Agron turned toward Duro and replied, keeping his voice as steady as he could: "Yeah, I-I'm fine Duro. It was probably my imagination playing tricks on me again. You know how long working nights can get me!" With a forced smile, he patted Duro on the arm and cleaned the rest of his face off with a towel.

"Look, I'm fine, really, stop worrying about me so much. Now come on, I gotta go to my meeting and you gotta go do the groceries. And then we gotta go meet your new girlfriend. I'll go get my coat." with that, Agron began to walk out of the bathroom and into the hallway.  
  
Duro looked at him suspiciously for a moment and replied: "...Alright. If you're absolutely, 100% sure that you're fine and you're not just lying to me to get out of this...."  
  
With a smile, Agron put on his coat and opened the front door. "And I keep telling you, I am absolutely, 100% sure that I'm fine and I am not lying to you. Promise. You'll be okay?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah. Go to your meeting, I'll text you the address where the three of us are supposed afterwards. See you Agron!" with a small smile of his own, Duro waved at Agron, who replicated the gesture and closed the door.  
  
With a sigh, Duro looked down at the floor beneath him. While Agron might have said everything was fine, all of the splattered blood on the grey and white tiles told another story.  
  
"Don't make promises you can't keep, big brother." Duro mumbled to himself and with that, he walked out of the bathroom and back into his bedroom.  
  
 *****************  
 _Meanwhile..._

"There we go: two espressos and a caramel latté with two sugars, hope you enjoy!" Nasir said to the three women smiling at him as he set their drinks in front of them. Carrying his now empty tray up to the main counter of the coffeehouse, he noticed Chadara arriving with a scowl and a huff.  
  
"What's going on?" asked Nasir, a bit confused as to why Chadara was looking so upset.  
  
Nodding her head toward the main entrance of the shop, the waitress replied: "Guess who's here to see you..." and Nasir got his answer because right by the two big doors of the coffeehouse, there stood a coat-wearing, hair-twirling and chewing gum-munching Saxa. When her eyes met Nasir's, she stopped the twirling and the munching and set herself more upright, straightening her hair and attire to make herself look more presentable.  
  
Seeing Nasir shake his head at his former friend's antics with a tiny smile, Chadara asked him: "Do you want to go talk to her or should I kick her out?"  
  
"I've got this. Either way, there's someone at table 14 who wants a mocha and he looks grumpy, so I think you should take this one quick." Nasir replied and as Chadara made her way to her new client, he went his way to where Saxa was standing.  
  
He stood right in front of her and tried to be as nonchalant as he could be: "Hey there."  
  
With a frown on her face and her eyes looking at the floor, Saxa answered with a weak: "Hi."   
  
"So I heard you came out here to see me?" Nasir asked, raising his eyebrows.  
  
Saxa raised her eyes and looked at him. She replied: "Well, yeah, I was just in the neighborhood, I was walking by your workplace and I told myself to take the risk and see if you wanted to talk to me."  
  
"What is there to talk about, Saxa? You wake me up one morning without any previous warnings, you yell at me to get up, pack my stuff and get out of your apartment, which by the way, was mostly _mine_ because I paid most of the rent as far as I can remember. And all of this because your boyfriend wanted to come live with you. Do you know the kind of shit I went through in the past three months Saxa? How many hard couches and floors I slept on before somebody was kind enough to take me in and give me a more permanent roof over my head? I thought you were my friend and you just kicked me out like I was nothing! How the fuck am I supposed to feel?" Nasir said in almost one breath, all of his pent-up anger and frustration over his past living situation coming out all at once.  
  
He was shocked when saw that Saxa's eyes were fighting back tears and her face scrunched up. "I *do* know how I made you feel! Okay? I know what I did was wrong and I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am! That guy was a jerk, okay? He said he would break up with me if I didn't kick you out and let him move him.But I loved him so much that I didn't think about you and I just thought about me and my relationship! I'm so sorry for everything you went through because of me, Nasir, I really am!" Saxa sobbed out. Somehow knowing that Saxa was in fact telling the truth and really was sorry, Nasir went over and gathered the crying woman in his arms.  
  
He soothed her with whispered words in her ear: "Hey now, it's okay. Sshh, it's alright." He closed his eyes and tightened his arms around her as she slowly calmed down and tightened her own hold around him.  
  
Leaning back and wiping away her tears, Saxa asked him with nervousness in her voice: "So, um, I know I don't have the right to ask you, but, is there any way that you could maybe, I don't know, forgive me?"  
  
Seeing the true sorrow in her eyes at what she had done and a part of him missing her friendship, Nasir nodded his head once with a tiny smile on his face.  
  
Saxa welled up once again in tears, but this time in happiness. "Oh, Nasir!" she said out loud and threw her arms around him once more, making the man laugh and even sniffle a little bit, a part of his heart being repaired right on the spot.  
  
After holding each other tightly for a few moments, Nasir pulled back and tucked a loose strand of hair around Saxa's ear. "So, what happened to that boyfriend of yours? Is he still around?" he asked her, and Saxa put her hands up in defense and stammered out:  
  
"No, no he's not, I swear! He's out of my life for good! I don't want anything to do with that lying, cheating pig anymore."  
  
Raising an eyebrow at the mention of the word "cheating", but not wanting to open up what apparently was a sealed off wound, Nasir took her hands in his and replied with a small laugh: "Alright, alright I believe you! But, have you set your sights on someone else?"  
  
With a small blush on her cheeks and a scuffle of her foot, Saxa answered with a tiny smile: "Well, yeah, uh, sort of. I've met somebody recently and hum, he's the nicest, most wonderful man I've ever had the privilege of dating. *And*, he's absolutely gorgeous to boot!"  
  
"Well I'm glad to hear it. I actually would like to meet him someday." Nasir said and Saxa's eyes lit up in excitement.  
  
"Well, you could! He's actually living not too far from here and I'm actually going there for lunch and you could come by too. Ooh, it would be so great! Can you come, please Nasir, please tell me you'll come?" she asked him, bouncing up and down on her heels like an sugar-rushed child and all Nasir could do was laugh at her antics.  
  
"Alright, alright, I'll come. Don't need to be so giddy about it." he replied, rolling his eyes at her playfully.  
  
"Alright, good. I'll write you down the address right here." Saxa said and taking a pen out of her purse and a nearby napkin, she scribbled down her information on it, giving it to her once-again friend who tucked it into his pants pocket. With a smile, she added: "Well, looks like you got some clients you need to take care of and I've got some stuff to do, so...I'll see you around noon?"  
  
With another heartfelt hug, Nasir replied into her long blonde hair: "Yeah, I'll be there. Don't worry. Now get going, you little she-devil!" With one final playful shove on her butt, he smiled and waved at her as she made her way out of the coffeehouse.  
  
With one last look at the way she went, Nasir made his way back to the main counter with a sigh. Chadara walked up to him, wanting all of the details about what just happened.  
  
"So, how did it go? Did you yell at her? Kick her ass? What?" she asked, her eyes gleefully full of vengeance.  
  
"No, no I didn't kick her ass, unfortunately." Nasir replied, rolling his eyes at the waitress' disappointed "Aww!" coming out of her mouth. He continued: "Actually, it was kinda nice. She said she was sorry for what happened, we talked for a bit and I'm going to meet her new boyfriend for lunch."  
  
Seeing the smile on Nasir's face, Chadara replied: "Wow, you really missed her, didn't you?"  
  
The small man shrugged his shoulders and only replied: "Yeah, I think I kind of did." And to tell the truth, Nasir was looking forward to going to Saxa's new boyfriend's place and eat with some good company. Though when he thought a little bit about it, wouldn't he really be like a third wheel between Saxa and her new man?

If he had a boyfriend or something of the like, at least he could have brought him along and not feel excluded. But the thing was, the only man he was seeing as boyfriend material was living on the other side of a mirror, in a complete different world from him, with no way of them ever coming together, at least as far as he knew. Which was a shame really, Nasir thought, because with the way they had connected last night back at his house, they really could have been an amazing couple...  
  
 _Crash! Blang!_  
   
A crashing sound coming from one of the nearby table made Nasir startle out of his thoughts and Chadara's face to turn into a frown. "Damnit Kore! It's the third time in a month that you break a coffee pot! Do you know how much they cost?!" She yelled out as she made her way to the scene of the mishap, where the poor just-hired waitress was apologizing over and over for what had just happened.  
  
Smiling a sympathetic smile, Nasir picked up the broom from behind the counter and went over to pick up the pieces of the coffee pot. As he made his way over the table where it'd happened, he heard Chadara give poor Kore a piece of her mind:  
  
"You know this is going to get out of your paycheck, right? If you weren't always so damn clumsy all the time, then maybe we wouldn't have to replace stuff almost every single week!"  
  
"I'm sorry, Miss Chadara, please don't fire me! I'll do better I swear! I'll pay for everything from now on, I promise! I'm so sorry!" cried Kore as Nasir arrived at the scene.  
  
He patted a seething Chadara on the shoulder and whispered to her: "I'll take it from here. Come on, there's some people waiting at the counter for some take-out, you should go and take care of it."  
  
Tapping her foot and giving Kore an annoyed look one more time, Chadara spun on her heels and went to answer the waiting costumers. Nasir looked at her leaving and turned over to the young waitress and said: "Don't worry about your job, Kore. Accidents happens sometimes, believe me, I know. You just have to be more careful with the way you're handling stuff, that's all. Now, go serve at table 10, they need you." With a grateful smile, Kore began to make her way to her waiting table while Nasir approached the scene of the apparent crime, broom and dust buster in hand, ready to pick up the broken pieces.  
  
As he put the dust buster down on the floor next to him, Nasir began to sweep the tiny broken pieces of glass that were strewn across the floor. Poor thing, he thought to himself as he was making broad strokes on the floor with his broom, the sound of the broken glass he was collecting ringing into his ear. He remembered when he first started here himself three years earlier, how clumsy he was and just like Kore, there wasn't a week that went by that he didn't seem to break or mess up something at work. His self-confidence had been at an all-time low and he just about been ready to give up on his job and everything else that one rainy night, when he...  
  
When he...

  
Nasir's thoughts became fuzzy all of a sudden...what was he thinking about just now? Funny, he couldn't remember. He continued to swipe at the floor, his head in the clouds, the crunching sound of the glass still ringing. My god, he thought as he continued to swipe at floor, how much glass is there in one coffee pot anyway? It was like he'd been sweeping forever. It was like the entire floor was filled with broken glass, it was like...  
  
As he looked down at his feet to see what was going on, he realized to his horror that he was right, the entire floor was in fact covered in broken glass. There was so much of it, everywhere he looked, like it wasn't just a coffee pot that had been broken right there, but something much bigger, like a...  
  
 _"Na-Nasir..."_  
  
Feeling his head suddenly spinning, the broom that Nasir was holding fell from his hands and right onto the ground next to him. Kore, who was nearby and was seeing Nasir swaying while holding a hand over his eyes, came over to check what was wrong.  
  
"Mr. Nasir, are you okay?" she asked worriedly and could only watch as her boss bent over on himself in half, trying to regain his senses.  
  
Which he was trying to do really, if the world around him would just stop spinning and spinning and spinning and he felt like he was about to throw up. Suddenly, his felt himself stop spinning and he would have been grateful for that, if he wasn't seeing the incoming luminary pole right in front of him. Oh god, it was about to hit him, about to hit them...  
  
"Look out!" was all he screamed before he covered his eyes in pain once more and Kore, Chadara and all of the customers inside the coffeehouse could only watch in absolute horror as that horrified scream made every pieces of glass in the coffeehouse explode into themselves one by one, from the other coffee pots Kore hadn't broken to the large bay windows and the mirror by the main entrance, leaving nothing but broken glass everywhere when all was said and done.  
  
Suddenly feeling very tired, Nasir fell to the floor on both knees, still holding his head in both of his hands. Chadara and Kore ran over to his side.  
  
"Nasir, are you okay? What happened? What the hell happened to all of the glass?" Chadara asked him, but Nasir was still feeling too faint to say anything.  
  
He could only answer: "I...I don't know. Saw all this glass everywhere, then nothing. Absolutely nothing."  
  
"Well look at what you did!" Chadara cried out and lifting his head after feeling strong enough to do it, Nasir's face contorted to absolute shock as he saw all the tiny pieces of broken glass everywhere in the coffeehouse as far as his eyes could see.  
  
He turned his head toward Chadara and asked her in distress: "What the fuck happened? What did all this?!"  
  
"That's what I'd like to know! One second I hear you screaming and then the next everything around me just explodes out of freakin' nowhere!" Chadara cried out, her arms flailing wildly.  
  
Kore tried to calm the situation: "Look, I don't know what's going on, but we've got to make amends here. I'm going to go and call a repairman to see if he can come and fix all of this and Miss Chadara, I'll leave you to it, okay?" And with that, Kore sprinted to the back store of the shop to use the phone.   
  
"Look, whatever's going on has probably something to do with you. So I'll tell you what: I'll try to assess everything down here with Kore and you go and make yourself feel better. I'm going to give you the rest of your shift off." Chadara said, still a little bit scared at what had just happened, but trying to be as reassuring to Nasir as possible.  
  
"Yeah, it's probably better if I just go. I've done enough damage today already. I'm going to go see my doctor and get myself fixed." Nasir said in a still bit dizzied whisper and he walked around as best as he could around the pieces of glass strewn  about on the floor. As he was about to go out the exit door, he looked at Chadara once more and cried out: "I'll pay for everything, I promise Chadara!" And with that, he was gone.  
  
Looking down at the wreckage that was the floor of the coffeehouse, Chadara only whispered: "It's alright, you've already paid enough." and with that, she and the coffeehouse were gone too.


	8. Are these people helping...or not?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nasir meets with his doctor while Agron meets with one of the owner of the house and things...slowly starts to unravel.

As Nasir entered the hospital where his regular doctor was working, he was still a little bit shaken about what had happened that morning. He really wasn't sure what had happened exactly: how in the world could everything explode like that, on its own? If that had been the only strange occurrence that had occurred over the past few days, then maybe it wouldn't be so dramatic and it could have a logical explanation, but this was just another one into a whole line of them and Nasir didn't understand anything anymore. At first he was just having another of his occasional migraines and that was when things started to go downhill: he was seeing and hearing things that weren't there, colors seemed to appear into his house on its own, now he was making things blow up and that wasn't mentioning the mirror inside of his bedroom that contained a whole different world and a very attractive and sweet man that he had fallen in love with inside of it...  
  
Wait...fallen in love?  
  
Nasir stopped in the middle of his steps and wondered: could he really be in love with someone he had known for only 24 hours? He had heard of stranger things on that particular subject, but he never though it could actually happen to him. But with the way that they had bonded the night before and the way he was looking at him when Nasir was talking...could Agron be feeling the same as he was? Did the other man love him too? It seemed like they had known each other for far more than one single day and at least as far as Nasir went, he knew his feelings for the man in the mirror ran much deeper than they should be for someone that he had just met.  
  
But, as Nasir thought with as sigh, it was useless anyways, because even if Agron felt the same way about him, there was no way they could ever be together, with being from two different worlds and not having a clue how to reach the other without breaking their link. So it really didn't matter how deep Nasir's feelings truly ran, it was hopeless either ways.  
  
As he approached the front desk, a red-haired woman greeted him with a smile, to which he responded weakly.  
  
"Hello, welcome to Vesuvius City Hospital! What can I do for you?" asked the secretary in a cheerful voice.  
  
"Hi, um, I'm here to see Dr Laeta." Nasir stammered out, his hands gripping the desk in front of him.  
  
"Oh, sorry, but Dr. Laeta isn't in today. Dr. Naevia is the on-call doctor today. So, please, take a seat and she'll see you in a few minutes." the red-haired woman said, pointing to an array of chairs not too far from where they were.  
  
"Al-alright." was all Nasir could reply, walking over to a plastic blue chair and sitting on it. Great he thought, _my doctor isn't even in today_. What else could go wrong?

  
*******************

_Meanwhile..._  
  
Agron was checking the road as best as he could, but his head was buried in thoughts. What the hell happened that morning back at his apartment? Was he, like Duro had put it the day before, still loopy? Well from what he had seen and heard over the past few days, he wasn't just loopy, he was freakin' looney. Was that really it though? Was he starting to lose it? That would explain at lot of things though: seeing things on his face that weren't really there, feeling touches and hearing voices that seemed to be all in his head, react violently to a simple twirling light, to falling in love with someone who existed in another world behind the glass of a wall-length mirror...  
  
Wait...falling in love?  
  
If he was in fact becoming crazy, then Nasir wasn't really real and in fact was just a figment of his imagination like all of the other things. But deep inside his heart, he actually wanted Nasir to be real. Because, as he was realizing it, he had indeed fallen for the long-haired, dark-eyes stranger that he had only met the day before and he didn't want to be in love with just a fantasy, he wanted the other man to be real and to be with him. With the way they had talked and laughed the night before, Agron had never connected with someone like that in such a short period of time and he hadn't wanted the night to ever end. It was like all of his fears and worries had flown away in his time with Nasir, like there was nothing in the entire universe that existed but the two of them and he felt like they had been destined to meet. Like they were two halves of something that had found one another and for a period of time, he had felt whole again. Like a part of him had been missing all of his life and he had found it in Nasir's bright smile.  
  
But Agron shook his head at his thoughts, there was no way they could ever be, with a mirror standing between them and no way that he knew that they could really be together the way that he wanted them to. But he also thought, with the way Nasir was looking at him whenever he talked, like Agron hung the moon and the sky, maybe the other man felt the same way about him. Reason once again resonated through Agron's head though: even if the other man had fallen for him too, unless a miracle happened, they could never have a proper life together no matter how much the both of them wanted to.  
  
Agron shook his head once more, trying to get thoughts of Nasir and the strange occurrences of previous days out of his mind. He had a job to do and renovating had to be done.  
  
The spiky-haired man suddenly put his foot on the break of the car, realizing something. Oh, _shit._ The night before, he was supposed to have been painting the guest-room and he even had bought painting to do it, but he had been so engrossed into his time with the man on the other side of the mirror that he had completely forgotten about it! And he was on his way to meet one of the owners to see how things were going, who he was sure was going to flip his shit when he saw the unfinished room! He was in big, big trouble and he knew he wasn't going to hear the end of it. Breathing deeply, Agron calmed himself down. It was alright, as long as the future owner didn't walk into the guest-room, everything would be fine. Yeah, everything would be fine. Smiling a little by his plan of distracting the future owner of the house, Agron started the van once again and made the rest of the way to the large house.  
  
As he finally arrived, he saw that the person he was meeting was sitting on the front steps and smiled as he stepped out of his car.  
  
"Hi! You must be one of the renovators, right? I'm Crixus." the man before him said and extended his hand, which Agron shook with a smile.  
  
"Nice to meet you, I'm Agron." he replied.  
  
Crixus had a smile of his own as he got his copy of the key to the house out of his pocket. As he opened the door and Agron followed him inside, he said: "Well, I'm here to check out how things are going and if everything's going on schedule. I can't wait to see everything you've done so far!"  
  
"Yeah, me too." replied Agron with a plastered smile on his face. _Yeah, can't wait for this meeting to be over with_ , he really thought.  
  
 ***************  
  
As Nasir entered Dr. Naevia's office, she seemed busy talking to someone on the phone:  
  
"Still no progress? I see. But I thought with what happened yesterday...yes, I understand but you know I'm not going to give up that easily on them." When she saw the young man enter the office, she smiled and indicated for him to sit down. "Right, well let me know if there are any improvements, my 11h30 is here. Alright, bye." Dr. Naevia finished saying, hanging up the phone and addressing the man sitting in front of her. "Hi, you must be Nasir, right? I'm Dr. Naevia, I'll be the one checking you out today." she said to him.  
  
"Yes, um, hello." Nasir replied, a bit shy with being with a doctor he didn't know.  
  
"So tell me, what can I do for you?" Dr. Naevia asked with a smile, to which Nasir responded a bit hesitantly.  
  
"Well, see, I was supposed to come here to see Dr. Laeta for my migraines, but these past few days, strange things have been happening to me and I don't really know what to do." Nasir answered, twisting his hands together, secretly hoping that this Dr. Naevia person could help him with whatever problem he was suffering that was making him see and hear things like that.  
  
"Really? And what kind of things?" Naevia asked, leaning her body against her desk, seemingly curious about what Nasir was saying.  
  
"Well, you're going to think I need more of a shrink than an actual doctor, but I've been seeing things that aren't really there and hearing voices. Plus today, I made all the glass inside my job place explode on its own somehow...You must really think I'm cuckoo, don't you?" Nasir said, a frown appearing on his face.  
  
"No, no! It's alright! I'm not here to judge you Nasir, on the contrary, my job is to help you in any way I can." Naevia reassuringly replied with a tender smile, which somehow made Nasir relax a bit.  
  
"Oh, okay thanks." Nasir said, his smile reappearing.  
  
"Alright then." Naevia said, putting her glasses on her nose. "Let's start from the beginning." She added. And Nasir started to tell her his story.  
  
Meanwhile, Agron and Crixus were in the main hall of the big house and were walking along and chatting idly.  
  
"So, my wife told me you're working with your brother? Is that right?" Crixus asked the other man, seemingly interested in his life story.  
  
"Yes, I am. For about three months now and we're pretty successful, if I do say so myself." Agron replied, feeling quite proud of himself and Duro for everything that they had accomplished so far.  
  
"And how did it happened exactly? What made you decide to start a business together?" Crixus asked him as they made their way through the living room and were about to go into the kitchen.  
  
"Well, I dunno, exactly, to tell you the truth. But I do remember the date though, June 25th. We'd never really talked about it but that morning, out of nowhere, my brother woke me up, told me that he had left his job the night before and wanted to start a renovation business with me. And since it had always been my secret passion to renovate old houses and fix other people's problems, I immediately said yes. And now, here we are." Agron told him with a small grin. He really was proud of everything that they had done, his brother and him and he thanked his lucky star that Duro had decided to quit his job on a whim the night before. But strangely enough, when he really thought about it, he couldn't remember for the life of him what he himself had done the night before that decisive morning. And he usually had a good memory with events and dates but try as he might, every time he thought about that particular day, nothing came to him but complete fuzziness. Which was weird because he was sure that that day was supposed to be an important one, at least for him...  
  
"Alright, let's go see what's going on with the cabinets in the kitchen!" Crixus said, taking Agron out of his never-ending thoughts, as he opened the kitchen door and stepped inside.  
  
"Oh, well, Duro had to get a few tools at the store yesterday and he told me all he had time to do were the measurements, so I don't think you're going to find anything..." Agron stopped talking when, as he too stepped into the room behind Crixus, he saw what the other man was seeing and couldn't believe his eyes.  
  
"Agron! These are amazing! Your little brother's a fast one! I can't believe he made those in just one day!" Crixus cried out excitedly, admiring the brand new red-painted wodden cabinets that hung above the sink.  
  
"Yeah, can't believe it either." Agron mumbled, completely dumbfounded at what he was seeing. With what Duro had been gone all afternoon the day before and knowing he wasn't at the house neither last night because he was there himself nor this morning because he was busy grocery shopping, for the life of him Agron didn't understand how these perfectly crafted, perfectly painted and perfectly installed cabinets were doing right there.  
  
Then, his mind went to the night before and his eyes grew wide. Didn't he had found it funny that the supposed leaking faucet in the bathroom was no longer dripping? And when he looked at the kitchen sink, he realized that a brand new faucet was there instead of the old, rusty one that he had seen yesterday. But he knew that the plumbing wasn't supposed to be touched upon until the next week, at least that's what he and Duro had agreed to, and he knew neither him nor his brother had touched anything resembling faucets at all the day before, so what on Earth was going on?  
  
As he saw Crixus admiring the inside of his brand new cabinets, a thought ran through his mind.  
  
Excusing himself, Agron practically ran to the guestroom and opened the door. Much to his shock, the room didn't look at all like the room he had left the night before. The colors on the walls were neither the old deep-red nor the white primer that he put on the day before. No, instead the walls were covered in a mix of blue and green and to Agron...it was perfect. It wasn't the color he had brought the night before to paint with, but if this had been Agron's own house, this would have been the kind of colors he would have chosen for this particular room.  
  
Stepping out of the guest-room and getting back into the kitchen, Agron put on his best smile and went over to Crixus, who looked to be in absolute glee at what the brothers had apparently done, but Agron knowing they really hadn't. _Better pretend that everything's a-okay if you don't want to get in trouble,_ Agron thought to himself as he approached the other man.  
  
"So, do you like them?" Agron asked Crixus, to which the other man's smile grew even wider and he replied:  
  
"I don't like them, I love them! My wife's going to be so happy with how fast everything's going. Plus, I don't know how you did it, but you got rid of all the cobwebs in the living room and the kitchen! You guys really are amazing!" and looking around the kitchen, Agron saw that Crixus was in fact right, all of the cobwebs that he had seen in the room just the day before were now completely gone and if he thought about it, he didn't remember seeing a single one on his way over here. What the hell was this, a self-cleaning, self-repairing house? Whatever was going on, he was sure of one thing: it wasn't natural.  
  
While all of this was going on, on his side, Nasir had just finished telling his life story to Naevia, who was listening intently. He had left out the part with the mirror and Agron, somehow wanting to keep this to himself, like a secret only he and the man on the other side of the mirror could know about.  
  
"Well then," said Naevia, putting her glasses on her desk and smiling, "could you remember the first time you got one of your migraines? Do you know the exact date"  
  
Nodding his head, Nasir replied: "Yes, it was about three months ago, on June 25th, I just woke up one morning like my head was about to explode and I was about to throw up, but then it just ended almost the instant that it started. He remembered that day just like yesterday: it had been the day when Saxa had disturbed him in his attempt to get back to sleep a couple of minutes later to tell him to pack his stuff and leave the apartment almost immediately. Even though he had forgiven Saxa earlier that day, it still stung a bit to think about it.  
  
"Well, do you remember what happened the day before? Maybe you hit your head on something or you ate something you were allergic to and that was what started your migraines. So tell me, what happened on June 24th three months ago?" Naevia asked him.  
  
Well that was easy, Nasir thought, the day before this had all started he was...he had been...this was the day when he...funny, he thought. _Why can't I remember what I did on that day? I know it was supposed to be an important day for me, but why? What was supposed to happen on that day? Did I do it? Why can't I remember one single day that happened only three months ago?_  
  
Seeing Nasir struggle with his thoughts, Naevia tried to reassure him by saying: "It's alright Nasir if you don't remember what happened on that day, it happens to a lot of people to not remember certain dates, trust me. Let's just take one thing at a time and talk about something else." Opening one her desk drawer, the doctor reached for a file and opened it.  
  
"Before I forget, I went through your hospital file just before you came in and there seems to be some information that's missing. Would you mind if we filled it out together?" Naevia asked him and Nasir nodded, leaning his back against the chair he was sitting on.  
  
Back at the house, Crixus had reached inside his coat and pulled out a file. He asked Agron with a smile: "Before I forget, I wanted to complete me and my wife's file on you guys for you know, IRS stuff. Would you mind giving me some info?"  
  
"Um, sure." Agron responded, crossing his arms and awaiting Crixus' incoming questions.  
  
"So, first name?"  
  
"Agron."  
  
"Nasir."  
  
"Age?"  
  
"25 year-old."  
  
"23 years-old."  
  
"State in which you were born?"  
  
"New York."  
  
"New Hampshire."  
  
"Spouse's name?"  
  
"..."  
  
"..."  
  
Both Agron and Nasir looked at their respective interviewer, confusion written all over their faces.  
  
"What do you mean "Spouse's name"? I'm not married." Agron said to Crixus with defense in his voice.  
  
"I'm sorry, your file must be mistaken. I don't have a spouse. I'm not married." replied Nasir to Naevia.  
  
Crixus and Naevia looked at Agron and Nasir respectively and looking almost as confused as they were, they both asked them:  
  
"If you're not married, then why do you have a wedding band on your finger?"  
  
Agron looked at Crixus as if he was crazy and said: "What are you talking about, I don't have a wedding band on my finger. See?" he lifted his left hand to prove to Crixus that it was indeed ring-less, but to his complete shock and stupor, what he was looking at right now was definitely a silver wedding ring on his finger.  
  
Meanwhile, Nasir was also looking at Naevia as if she was crazy. "No, you got it wrong! I'm not wearing a ring on my finger! I'd definitely know if I was and believe me, I know I'm..." his explanation was cut short when he looked down at his left hand that was resting on the handles of his chair and, just like Agron, looked to be in complete shock as sure enough, a wedding band was encircling his left ring finger.  
  
Wh-what was going on? How did that get there? Surely they would remember having it and indeed would remember if they had gotten married to someone in the past. When did that happened? Wha-  
  
Agron's mind flashed with an image of himself, standing at the end of an aisle somewhere dressed in a dark toxedo, a priest right next to him, waiting for someone...  
  
Nasir's own mind flashed with an image of himself, walking down an aisle somewhere, dressed in a black suit and his eyes misty, looking at someone with complete adoration.  
  
Agron covered his eyes with his hand after his mind cleared and yelled out: "What's going on? What are you doing to me?"  
  
Nasir stood up from his chair in fright after the image in his head disappeared and said: "What the hell was that? What's going on?"  
  
More flashed came into both of their minds: Agron saw himself looking down at someone, with complete love in his eyes as he reached out and took an unknown hand in his.  
  
Nasir saw himself looking up at someone he couldn't see, holding an unknown hand, looking like the happiest man on Earth as the priest beside him started to recite words from his book.  
  
The both of them saw a silver ring being slipped on their respective finger, but not seeing who was slipping it.  
  
It was when the priest ended the ceremony with a proud: _"You may now kiss your groom."_ that each saw who had slipped the ring on their own fingers: as Nasir saw Agron smile at him and leaning down and Agron saw Nasir leaning up and together they exchanged the most loving and tender kiss that they had ever shared in their entire lives.  
  
Wh-what?!  
  
"No...this isn't real. I'm not...I'm not married! I would know! What the hell did you do to me?!" Nasir cried out, his head in his hands, not believing what his mind was telling him. Because if that was real and that had been the day that he'd gotten married, that also had been the day when he...  
  
 _"Na...Nasir..."_  
  
"I don't know what kind of fucking trickery this is, but stop it, okay? I am not married, I repeat! I am *not* married!" Agron cried, slowly stepping away from Crixus and pointing an accusatory finger at, believing that he was the cause of what his mind had shown him. This wasn't real. He hadn't gotten married, because if he had gotten married on that day, then that was the day that he also was...  
  
 _"Ag-Agron..."_  
  
"Agron, please..."  
  
"Nasir, please..."  
  
"No! You stay the fuck away from me! I don't know what the fuck is going on around here, but I've had enough of this. I'm going to go and you...you're going to stay right here and don't move!" threatened Agron as he stepped backwards until he felt the front door behind him and as quickly as he could, got away from that house and the man inside it that surely had done something to his head to see what he had seen, because there was no way in hell that he was married and even less chances he was married to...  
  
Nasir looked at Naevia with alarmed eyes: "Look, I don't know what's happening to me or around me, but this has gotta stop! Please, just, I've gotta get out of here! I can't...I'm not..." and with that, Nasir opened the door of Naevia's office and walked as fast as he could out of the hospital, away from that place and away from that woman who had done something to him to make him see that. Because he knew for certain that he hadn't gotten married, at least not to...  
  
 ***************  
  
Agron ran as fast as he could away from the house and stopped when he felt his legs hurting. Gulping breaths after breaths, he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened back there but for the life of him he just couldn't. He needed to get away from all of this weird shit, he needed a distraction, he needed...  
  
 _Beep! Beep!_  
  
He opened up his ringing phone and saw that he had just received a text from Duro. That's right! He was supposed to meet his brother and his new girlfriend at a coffeshop somewhere. That would be a nice distraction to everything that was going on. He would drink coffee and enjoy some nice company with people that he knew and wanted to meet. As Agron read the address Duro had written in his text and began to walk down the street, he frowned.  
  
645, Ludus Street? _That was odd_ , he thought as he kept on walking. He had been on that street many times before and that address was only a block away from his apartment, but for the life of him he couldn't remember ever seeing a coffeeshop there.  
  
As Agron turned the mentioned street and walked over to the mentionned address, sure enough, there stood a nice little coffeehouse, with its large bay windows and its inviting atmosphere. _Hmm, maybe it's been there all along and I just haven't been paying attention._ As he stepped inside, he spotted Duro and a woman sitting in one of the booths of the place. His little brother smiled as he saw Agron and waved at him to come over.  
  
Meanwhile, Nasir had gotten the hell out of the proximities as fast as he could from where the hospital had been and was now sitting on the sidewalk, trying to catch his breath. He had no idea what the hell had happened back there, or even more what the hell was happening in general, but he needed a break from it all. He needed to breathe a little, he needed...  
  
His stomach growled suddenly and a thought flashed through his mind. He reached out inside the pocket of his jeans and sure enough, there was the napkin where Saxa had written the address to where her new boyfriend was living. Smiling, Nasir got up and began walking. Lunch with an old friend and her new boyfriend, that would be a great distraction!  
  
As the street that was written on the piece of paper was approaching, Nasir wondered: _Hmm, "650, Ludus Street"? It's just a block away from my job and I've walked on that street many times before and I've never seen an apartment that read 650..._  
  
But sure enough, as he walked to the mentioned address, there stood an apartment with a door that read 650 on it. _Funny_ , he thought to himself as he walked up the stairs and stood in front of the apartment door, _I must not have been paying that much attention when I passed over here._  
  
He knocked three times on the door and smiled as it opened and Saxa stood there accompanied by a tall, brown-haired young man.  
  
"Hey Nasir! So glad you could make it!" Saxa said.  
  
As Agron reached the couple, Duro greeted him with a wide smile: "Hey there, big brother, glad you could make it!"  
  
As Nasir stepped inside the apartment, Saxa made the presentations.  
  
As Agron sat inside the booth in front of the couple, Duro made the presentations.  
  
"Nasir, I'd like you to meet my new boyfriend Duro."  
  
"Agron, this is my new girlfriend Saxa. Saxa, this is Agron."


	9. The truth shall set them free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth comes out.

Saxa shook Agron's hand eagerly with a wide smile. "I'm so excited to finally meet you! Duro has said so many great things about you ever since we've been dating that I've just been dying to meet, as he puts it, "My Super Awesome Big Brother"." she said, looking at her boyfriend with a coy eye and making both Duro and Agron blush wildly.  
  
"Really, you talked that way to her about me?" Agron asked Duro, which made his little brother blush even more.  
  
"Well, yeah. There's nobody that I look up to more than my big brother." Duro answered, which received him a fluffing of the hair from a proud-looking Agron.  
  
A blonde waitress made her way to their table with a smile. "Hello! I'm here to take your orders! What will it be?" she asked them, holding a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other.  
  
"I'll have a hot chocolate with two milks." Saxa said with a smile of her own.  
  
"I'll have an espresso with three sugars." Duro answered.  
  
The waitress turned toward the spiky-haired man in the other booth and asked him:  
  
"And what will it be, Agron?"  
  
"..." Agron looked at the waitress, completely confused. "How do you know my name?" he asked her conspicuously.  
  
"Why wouldn't I know it? You come here all of the time, don't you?" the waitress answered, looking at him like it was obvious.  
  
"Look, lady, this is the first time I've ever come here and before today I didn't know this place even existed. Believe me when I tell you I'd remember coming here if I really did it "all the time", as you so eloquently say ." Agron replied, starting to think that maybe it wasn't him that was going crazy, but the people around him.  
  
"Well let me ask you this: do you know my name?" asked the waitress who wasn't wearing a name pin, so it'd be impossible for Agron to know that just by looking at her.  
  
But Agron suddenly smiled and answered: "That's one easy, it's Chadara."  
  
"Well, there you go." Chadara said with a smile and with that, she turned around and made her way her way back to the front of the shop.  
  
He shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in order. How in the world did he know that? How could he know the name of someone he had met right this second? From a few feet behind him, he heard a male voice calling out: "Chadara, could you switch the TV to ESPN? I wanna see the results of last night's game!"  
  
And he heard the woman whom he had somehow remembered her name and that seemed to be struggling with something replying: "I'm trying Sparty, but no matter what button I push on this damn remote, the TV seems to be stuck on the news!"  
  
Meanwhile, as Nasir walked into Duro's apartment, he took in his surroundings and was impressed with the way it was decorated: with frames hanging all over the walls, a small coffee table standing just in front of a television set on a movie. A small couch that looked to be cozy enough to sit and sleep on. The two bedrooms...  
  
Wait, two bedrooms?  
  
"Hey Duro, where's your roommate? Can you introduce me to him or her?" he asked as he turned around and faced the couple that were trailing behind him with a smile.  
  
With a nod of the head, Duro replied with a smile of his own: "Sure! He's in the portrait over there." indicating one of the wooden-frame on the wall near Nasir.  
  
As he approached the wall and checked it out, he was stunned that the picture in the frame was actually blurry, as if someone mixed the colors and lines together so that no one could make heads or tails of what it actually represented.  
  
Staring at the picture in confusion, he said out loud: "That's not a picture, it looks like a Picasso painting or something! What did you do to it?"  
  
In a complete nonchalant way, Duro shrugged when Nasir turned to look at him and simply answered: "Oh, I personally did nothing to it. It's like that because you don't remember him yet."  
  
Back at the coffeehouse, Agron looked a bit shakily at the couple sitting across him. "Guys, have I ever been here before?" he asked them in complete confusion at what was going on.  
  
Saxa smiled like it the most obvious thing in the world and replied: "Well, yeah! That's where you first met my roommate, wasn't it?"  
  
"Your...your roommate?" Agron asked her, not remembering Duro ever saying anything about Saxa having a roommate.  
  
"Oh, that's right! You don't remember him yet." Saxa exclaimed, patting Agron's hand with her tiny one.  
  
"Don't-don't remember him?" they both asked the couple in front of them.  
  
"Yeah, look!" Saxa replied.  
  
As Agron looked at the direction Saxa was pointing, he saw that night had somehow fallen outside and it was pouring very hard. He saw through the large bay windows a small figure standing under an umbrella making his way to a taller figure that he couldn't see clearly through the pouring rain.

As he squinted his eyes, he saw the small figure extend its hand and draping itself and the taller figure under the big umbrella. As the rain disappeared from around the both of them thanks to the comfort of the shared umbrella, Agron could finally see both of the figures' faces, smiling at one another like it was love at first sight. He saw himself and Nasir, standing under the pouring rain with matching grins on their faces.  
  
And Agron remembered it like it happened yesterday, that day three years before where his life changed forever when he had met the love of his life.  
  
 _"Thanks for the umbrella, by the way, I really do appreciate it." he had said to the stranger that had just offered him a place to escape the rain._  
  
 _The smaller man had smiled at him and replied: "Well, you know as they say, always count on the kindness of strangers."_  
  
 _"Well, why don't we be strangers anymore? I'm Agron." he had said, extending his hand toward the other man._  
  
Nasir smiled as he remembered that day too. _"I'm Nasir, nice to meet you."_   _he had said, shaking hands with the kind stranger in front of him who wasn't really a stranger anymore. Their hands stayed joined together for a moment longer and both Agron and Nasir could still feel the warmth of the other's hand spreading into their own._  
  
 _They had both released their tight hold on the other, blushing a little. "Say, I don't know if you're up for it, but would you mind getting out of the rain and go somewhere more, I don't know, dryer?" Agron had asked Nasir who had grinned at the other's shyness and had replied:_  
  
 _"Sure, lead the way." and huddling together as tightly as possible under Nasir's umbrella, they had made their way to..._  
  
"This apartment." Nasir mumbled out loud. He looked around and now was sure of something: he had been here before.  
  
They had spent the entire night in this apartment, telling each other their life story, their hopes and dreams and had ended up making love on the couch that was standing right now next to Nasir. He could still feel every touch, every kiss that Agron had given him that night and by the time they had fallen asleep in each other's arms, Nasir knew that he had fallen for the other man.  
  
"Yeah, listen!" Duro had told him just before this particular memory had come to his mind and sure enough, he heard the sound of running water. Bypassing Saxa and Duro and walking over to the source of the noise, he found himself in the bathroom of the apartment.

He saw that the running water was in fact the shower working inside its glass doors and inside of them he could see himself and a smiling Agron engrossed into a conversation. He saw himself working the knots off poor Agron's back with one of his famous relaxing massages he knew the other man just loved. Even though he couldn't hear them, he knew perfectly what they were saying, because he remembered how it had went:  
  
 _"Oh please, you know I keep you around for more than that!" had laughed Agron, his eyes still closed but now completely relaxed and at ease._  
  
 _"Oh yeah? And what can you do to convince me on that particular point? Hmm, Agron?" he had asked him and with a tender smile, Agron had replied:_  
  
 _"Well, you could begin by marrying me."_  
  
 _Nasir's coy smile had faltered from his face, completely shocked at what Agron had just said. "Begin by what!?" he had managed to squeak out, bringing a hand over his mouth._  
  
 _Agron had turned around, looking as serious as he had ever had been and whispered over the running water: "You could begin with marrying me."_  
  
 _"You-you want me to marry you?" Nasir had asked him, getting emotional._  
  
 _"Yes, I want you to marry me. I know it's not the best place to ask you this and maybe you deserve something more romantic for a proposal, but I just love you so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with you and-" he had been cut off with Nasir's lips on his and Agron smiled as he remembered the whispered "Yes, yes, I'll marry you." Nasir had said into his ear when the other man had brought him into a tight hug._  
  
"Nasir..." Agron whispered as more memories of the other man came to him, all of them good, all of them warm, all of them making him feel loved and cherished.  
  
"Agron..." Nasir whispered as his own memories of his time with the other man came rushing back, making his heart full and everything inside him click once again, like the missing piece of himself had finally been found and was now fitting perfectly.  
  
As he exited the bathroom and went back to the wall where the blurry picture was hanging, he saw that it was now clear as day and he could finally see its content: it was a picture of himself and Agron, their arms around one another with the biggest smiles that he had ever seen. They looked so happy and Nasir knew that they were, they were so in love...  
  
But a lagging thought went through his mind  
  
He turned toward the still standing Saxa and Duro, Agron's brother he now remembered, and asked them: "But, I don't understand, if Agron really lives here, with you, then where is he?"  
  
Agron looked at the couple sitting across him and asked them: "If Nasir is your roommate, then where is he?  
  
Duro looked at Nasir with a sad look on his face.  
  
Saxa looked at Agron with a sad look on her face.  
  
"He was here, but we're not sure he's going to stay with us anymore."  
  
"Why is that?"  
  
"Well, you should know, you were there with him."  
  
"There? Where? When?"  
  
"You don't remember? It happened just three months ago. That's how we got together. Looking after the both of you at the hospital."  
  
Agron looked at Duro with fear in his eyes and told him: "No, see, three months ago, you woke me up to tell me you wanted to start a renovating company with me. I wasn't at the hospital, I was in my bed."  
  
Agron could remember it, hearing his brother's excited voice telling him to wake up...to wake up....  
  
 _"Please Agron, you gotta wake up, do it for me please."_ he could now hear Duro's pained voice say to him.  
  
"No, I wasn't at the hospital three months ago, I was woken up by her." Nasir said, pointing a shaking finger at Saxa, "yelling at me to get my stuff and get out of my apartment." He could still hear her yelling at him to wake up, yelling at him to...  
  
 _"Please Nasir, please wake up."_ he could now hear Saxa's pained voice say to him.  
  
"Agron?" Duro asked him.  
  
"Nasir?" Saxa asked him.  
  
 _"Don't you know what happened three months ago?"_  
  
As if it had a mind of its own, the volume of the TV in the apartment and the one inside the coffeehouse raised itself up and both Agron and Nasir could perfectly hear what the newscaster was saying:  
  
 _"...and so it was three months ago to this date that what the press has dubbed "The Newlyweds" Crash" happened and the two victims have still made no improvements. We remember that on the night of June 24th 2013, right after their wedding ceremony, 25 year-old Agron and 23 year-old Nasir Shauss were involved in a car accident that sent the pair crashing into a lighting pole. Authorities are saying that the slippery road caused by the falling rain added with both men's inattention were at the cause of the accident."_ And as Agron and Nasir turned their head toward the television, they came face to face with the sight of the accident and now everything that they had been seeing over the past few days made perfect sense:  
  
The screeching honking noise.  
  
The red and blue light of the police sirens.  
  
The glass everywhere.  
  
The incoming pole.  
  
The blood.  
  
That was why they couldn't remember the night before they had woken up three months earlier and only remembered the morning after and the days onwards, because their previous lives had ended on that night and their new ones had begun that morning, a life without the other...  
  
"Agron..." whispered a tearful Nasir.  
  
"Nasir...." whispered a tearful Agron.  
  
 _...wait...._  
  
"Agron?" Nasir called out loud, knowing for sure he had heard the other man's voice.  
  
"Nasir?" called Agron from his side, thinking he had heard his name being called by the other man.  
  
"Agron!" yelled out Nasir, happy to hear the man he now remembered, the man he loved more than anything in this world.  
  
"Nasir!" responded a laughing Agron, happy to hear the other man's sweet voice. The voice of the man that he now remembered loving, that he still loved more than ever.  
  
Suddenly, as if an earthquake had struck, the ground began to shake. Things began to disintegrate and disappear.  
  
"What-what's going on?"  
  
"You may have found each once again, but your reality is collapsing. You need to get to him and quickly."  
  
"Wh-what should I do Saxa?" asked a petrified Nasir.  
  
"What should I do now?" asked a scared Agron to his brother.  
  
Both Saxa and Duro looked at Nasir and Agron and replied:  
  
"Run. _Now._ " And with that, the couple in front of them disappeared.  
  
Agron and Nasir both opened the door to where they were at and, seeing the world crumble around them, began to run for their lives, averting falling trees and collapsing houses as they sprinted down the street toward their destination.  
  
They both knew exactly where to go to find the other.  
  
They should have thought of it from the very beginning.  
  
They both arrived at the colonial-style house, opened the door and ran inside.  
  
"Agron!" the taller man heard Nasir yelling out through the house.  
  
"Nasir!" he shouted back and he knew the other man had heard him when he yelled out in return:  
  
"Over here!" he heard Nasir say.  
  
"I'm coming!" Agron yelled out and ran as fast as he could to the guestroom.  
  
When they both reached what was once Nasir's bedroom and the guestroom that Agron was supposed to renovate, they quickly made their way to the mirror. They stared at each other for a second, in awe of seeing the other man once again after everything they had gone through and now remembered.  
  
"Agron..." Nasir said with misty eyes and a tender smile.  
  
"Nasir..." Agron replied, as emotional as the other man.  
  
Suddenly, they both felt the walls around them beginning to collapse on their own. As the ground was about to give under them, they did the only thing that seemed logical to them: they both ran straight into the mirror, crashing into it, liberating a blinding white light from it and around them. In mid-jump, they both felt a solid form crashing into them and did the only thing they could they think of.  
  
They reached out and wouldn't let go for anything in this world.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah...a twist! What did you think?


	10. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are reunited at last, answers are finally given to them about what has been going on and they both have a decision to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note that I wanted to apologize to anyone if I confused them with the use of two narrators in this story. This is how I saw this story unfold in my head and I felt like if I only used one narrator, then it just wouldn't work with what I wanted to write and how its pacing would go. But still, sorry if I made anybody lose their focus because of it.

Two forms crashed into one another in mid-air and went tumbling down on some sort of soft but solid ground. The blinding light finally dissipated and all that was left was two people, hugging the other as tightly as possible, sprawled out on crushed wheat.  
  
Agron breathed deeply and slowly opened his eyes. He looked around, realizing that his back was resting on something solid that didn't seem to shake and wanting to give out. At least whatever that had just happened seemed to be over and he seemed to have gone through it okay. Feeling a solid form into his arms, he looked down and felt his heart rise in pure happiness when he saw the top of a head with dark long hair flowing down from it.  
  
Nasir opened his own eyes and took a deep breath. He realized that he was still in one piece and everything around him didn't seem to shake and crumble anymore. His eyes darted around and he noticed that he was laying somewhere outdoor with the clear blue sky above him and the sound of chirping birds around him.

He then realized that he seemed to be laying on top of a living and breathing surface and when he finally looked down, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest when he saw big, adorable emerald eyes looking back at him.   
  
"A-Agron?" he asked the man in front of him, still not quite believing that his newly-remembered love was right there, holding him into his arms once again.  
  
Agron nodded, his throat too thick with emotion to say anything. "Nasir?" he finally managed to croak out, wanting to be sure that this wasn't his mind playing tricks with him once again and he really was staring into the eyes of his forgotten-love.  
  
When Nasir nodded back, both of their dam of emotions came bursting out and they both launched themselves at one another, peppering the other's face with tiny little kisses, crying "I love you." and each other's names over and over into one another's shoulder.

They didn't know how much time they spent there, sitting in the middle of the field, rocking back and forth in each other's arms holding on as tightly as they could. But soon enough, their bodies stopped to shake and they could finally look at one another in the face.  
  
"Agron, oh god Agron!" was all Nasir could say, tears silently rolling down his face as he reached out and cradled his husband's face with his hands.  
  
His face stained with tears too, Agron leaned into Nasir's soft touch and replied: "Yeah, I'm here, Nasir and I..." he was about to say that he had missed him so much, but he really hadn't, because until a few moments ago, he didn't even remember anything about Nasir, so how could he have ever missed him if he hadn't even know him? His face crumbled once more and leaning his forehead against his husband's, he whispered brokenly: "I'm so sorry."  
  
Nasir leaned back, looked at him confused and said: "Sorry, sorry for what?"  
  
"To have forgotten you." Agron replied, feeling ashamed over this.  
  
Nasir took his husband's head in his hands and made Agron look him in the eye: "No, please! Don't say that! If there's someone that should be apologizing, it's me. I...I can't believe I could ever live my life without you, but I did...and I was perfectly fine because I didn't even know you existed and I'm so sorry and-umpph..." his rambling was cut-off by Agron's soft lips on his.  
  
Breaking the kiss and looking at him in the eye in return, Agron replied: "You don't have to apologize, okay? I was in the same situation as you were and I don't even know how or why it happened..."  
  
To which Nasir looked around, taking his surroundings and said: "Well, I don't know how or why anything happened at all. Where are we? How did all of this happen?"  
  
Sniffling and wiping the last remaining tears from his cheeks, Agron replied: "I was just about to ask you the same question..."  
  
 _"Well I guess we can help you on that matter."_  
  
Both men's head turned to the source of the unknown voice and they were shocked to see Naevia and Crixus standing there, looking at them with smiles on their faces. They both stood up but stayed close to one another, a little bit on edge at the other pair's presence because of their previous encounter with them both and what had occurred when they had met.   
  
Crixus stepped forward and raised a calming hand in front of him: "It's alright, boys. We're not here to cause you any harm, we're here to help you."  
  
"Wait a minute...I know you. You're the guy that I talked to on the phone when I saw the ad on the newspaper about a house for rent. I recognize your voice." Nasir said, pointing an accusating finger at the man in front of him.   
  
Agron squinted his eyes at the woman in front of him and gasped in recognition: "And I know you. You're the woman that hired me to renovate your house and gave me the grand tour."  
  
Nasir looked at Agron in surprise that the other man knew Naevia. "Well, she was also the doctor that saw me in her office." he said.  
  
Agron looked at Crixus and realizing Nasir had recognized him, he replied while pointing a finger at the man in front of him: "Well, he went to check out how my renovations were going."  
  
Both men looked at each other and said the same time: "And that's when I started to remember stuff!"  
  
Turning their heads around to look at the other couple, they both asked them: "What the fuck is going on?"  
  
This made Naevia giggle, how much they seemed to be so in synch with each other it was unbelievable.  
  
She looked at them with a gentle smile and started to explain:  
  
"What is going on is because of the two of you. You are the reason you are here. You are the people who created this field." she said gesturing around her and the boys looked around and realized that this was indeed the field that had appeared in their dream, but that dream had actually been a memory of the moment where they had been the happiest together, the first time that they had ever talked about a future together.  
  
Naevia smiled once more and added: "And you're also responsible for creating a world without one another."  
  
This made both men very angry. Holding each other close, Agron scoffed while caressing his husband's back: "Oh, please, like I could ever want to imagine my life without this man right here."   
  
Nasir looked as indignant as Agron and added: "Yeah, why would I voluntarily imagine myself living in a world without Agron?"   
  
Naevia looked at them with a bit of sadness in her eyes and simply replied: "Because of this."  
  
A flash illuminated Agron and Nasir's eyes and before them, they could see everything, what had happened the night of the accident:  
  
 _Since this had been a civil wedding ceremony and both men didn't want to spend extra money on a limo and a chauffeur, the newlyweds had decided to drive to their wedding reception on their own, inside Agron's car. It had been pouring rain all day, but the pair didn't give a damn: they were now husbands, they were on their way to see their friends and families and they felt like nothing could ever tear them apart._  
  
 _As they were rolling on the road, they couldn't keep their eyes off one another. Nasir suddenly giggled like a little boy and this made Agron smile._  
  
 _"What are you laughing about, baby?" he asked him, reaching over and taking his new husband's hand in his._  
  
 _With a twinkle in his eyes, Nasir replied with a tender smile: "Oh, it's nothing, really. I've just realized that I'm married to you now, the most gorgeous, smartest and sweetest man in the world."_  
  
 _This made Agron giggle in return. Kissing the newly added ring on Nasir's finger, he replied: "Well, I can't believe that I'm married to the sexiest, kindest and brightest man on Earth!"_  
  
 _Leaning his head against his husband's shoulder, Nasir said dreamily: "Can we skip the reception and go directly to the hotel? I really wanna be alone with you right now."_  
  
 _Ttssking, Agron replied with a shake of the head: "Huh-huh-huh! We've gotta go to the reception, first. I promised my mom that she would have the first dance with the groom."_  
  
 _Nasir batted his eyes dramatically at Agron and asked him: "After me of course?"_  
  
 _To which Agron grinned and replied: "After you, of course."_  
  
 _Nasir's face changed from playful to tender and he reached up and ran a hand through Agron's gelled hair. "I love you so much, Agron. I always will, I hope you know that." he whispered with gentle eyes._  
  
 _Turning his head once more from the road ahead, Agron looked at Nasir with as much tenderness and whispered back: "I know. And I love you too, I love you so much and nothing is ever going to come between you and me."_  
  
 _"Promise?"_  
  
 _"Promise."_  
  
 _They were about to lean in and kiss softly, when a bright light blinded them and a loud honking noise broke their moment._

_Everything suddenly seemed to happen in slow-motion: both of their heads turning around and seeing the truck that was about to hit them, Agron turning the steering wheel and thankfully avoiding the other car at the last second, him realizing that he couldn't put his car back in a straight line and because of the slippery road, he kept on doing 360s no matter how much he tried to regain control of the wheel, Nasir seeing the lighting pole that they were about to hit, Agron now seeing it too and knowing that there was nothing that they could do to avoid it._   
  
_Then, as fast as everything had slowed down, everything came back into their normal speed._   
  
_And that's when Nasir screamed out in a terrified voice: "Agron, look out!"_   
  
_And then Bang!_

  
_And then pure blackness._  
  
 _It was the sound of panicked voices and the red and blue lights of the police cars surrounding them that made Agron regain consciousness a moment later. He felt absolute pain everywhere: from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He remembered looking at Nasir one moment, then a blinding light, then turning around and around and then...nothing.  He raised his head as much as he could to see the extend of what had just happened and that's when he saw it, the absolute devastation:_  
  
 _The steel wreck that had been his car and the pole it had hit._  
  
 _The glass that had fallen everywhere._  
  
 _When he looked at the round and cracked rear-view mirror, he could see his own bloody face, bruised and cut through and through because of the broken glass._  
  
 _He could hear a paramedic yell out: "It's alright sir, we're going to get you out of there!" and the sound of steel being torn opened thanks to a pair of jaws of life._  
  
 _"A-Agron..."_  
  
 _The sound of Nasir calling his name beside him..._  
  
 _Oh, god! Nasir!_  
  
 _Agron took every bit of his strength to turn his throbbing head around to look in his husband's direction._  
  
 _He saw Nasir fluttering his eyes open, his face as cut up and bruised as his was, trying with much effort to focus his eyes on his husband's._  
  
 _They were both battered and bruised everywhere, they must have had many fractured or broken bones in their bodies or maybe even worse, their whole beings were just throbbing in pure agony, but in that moment, all they could see was each other._  
  
 _"Na-Nasir..." was all Agron had the strength to mutter out._  
  
 _Mustering the last of his remaining strength, Nasir reached out and put his hand on top of Agron's, which the other man grabbed as tightly as he could and entwined their fingers together._  
  
 _Raising his head up one more time, Agron only had the force to smile weakly at his husband, which Nasir replied to as much as he could and gently, as if they were falling asleep, both of their heads leant back against the top of their car seats and they fell unconscious like that, with a weak smile on their faces and their hands intertwined._   
  
"And the next moment after that, you both woke up in a different world, with no memories whatsoever of what had just happened and who the other man that was in the car with you even was, because in your world he wasn't even born, he didn't even exist." Naevia finished telling them, leaving the pair before her shaken and reeling.  
  
"But why? Why would we imagine ourselves without each other? That's just insane! Why would we make ourselves go through this?" asked Agron, still not comprehending how he could create a world without Nasir in it.  
  
"Yeah! Why would we do this kind of thing? I can't imagine my life without Agron, so why would I want to live a life where he's not even born?!" added Nasir, not believing that he would make himself go through this kind of thing.  
  
Naevia smiled at the both of them and answered: "Your guilt. Your guilt made you do it."  
  
Agron and Nasir looked at one another and back at the woman. "Our guilt? Our guilt of what?" Nasir asked her.  
  
"Well, your guilt over what happened. You both thought you caused the accident by having your focus on each other instead of the road in front of you and in your mind you wanted to punish yourself for causing the person that you loved pain, suffering and maybe even death.

So when you fell unconscious, you imagined yourself into a world where that person didn't exist, therefore you would never ever get a chance to meet him and live the happiness you both thought you didn't deserve. Sure you would be happy, but not nearly as much as you would be with the other in your life.

This was in fact your own created purgatory without you even realizing it. But you do deserve to be happy, both of you deserve happiness and love. You don't have yourselves to blame for anything that happened that night. You know as they say: shit simply happens sometimes. And that's exactly what happened." Crixus explained in turn with a smile of his own.  
  
"But I don't understand: we did end up meeting each other and remembering. If we were supposed to live in a world where the other one's not even born, how did we end up being able to communicate?" Agron asked, confused over the events of the past few days.  
  
"Well, I can answer that one." Naevia said, smiling at the man beside her. "While your guilt was powerful enough to create both of your individual worlds, your love for one another was the element that created a link between the two of them. It was your forgotten hopes and dreams that created this house."

She pointed her finger in the direction behind the couple and sure enough, there stood the large colonial-style house that they had dreamed in this field in what seemed like a lifetime ago and had been the host of their first re-acquaintance with one another.  
  
"And your hidden desire to find another once again despite everything was what created this thing right here." Crixus pointed right behind him and sure enough, there stood the mirror where they had first seen and made contact with one another, not knowing who the other man was but still wanting to learn about his identity and eventually falling in love with him all over again.   
  
"And you two, what part do you have in all of this?" Nasir asked the pair before him.   
  
Naevia responded: "Well, when we saw that despite forgetting everything, the creation of that house and this mirror meant that you both wanted to find one another somehow and all you really needed was a little push, let's just say we did our best to rush things along."  
  
"And where are you from? Why do you seem to know so much about our lives and what happened to us?" Agron asked them.  
  
"Let's just say we received orders from someone who is cheering for the both you to make it." Naevia replied enigmatically. And both men decided to leave that particular subject alone.  
  
Nasir looked around and asked the million dollar question:   
  
"So now what? Are we dead? Is this heaven? Where should we go and what can we do?"  
  
Indicating the mirror behind Crixus, Naevia replied: "Well, why don't go see for yourselves."  
  
As the newlyweds approached the full-length mirror, they took a peak on its surface and sure enough, it reflected an image of the both of them, but not standing in the middle of a field of wheat, no. Instead, they were seeing both of their unmoving but still breathing bodies laying in adjacent hospital beds, with their friends and families sitting at their sides, imploring the both of them to wake up.   
  
"You've been in a coma ever since the accident. The choice of what happens next is up to you both: you can either go through this mirror right here and wake up back into reality, with your families and your friends, but also with the pain that the accident has caused you and the uncertainty of what's ahead. Or you can go there."Naevia explained, this time indicating the house just a few feet away from them and a gust of wind magically opened its front door.

"You can go in there and live together, free of pain and suffering and have all of eternity to enjoy each other's company. The next chapter in your story is for you to decide." she added and with that, her and Crixus disappeared right in front of both men's eyes, leaving the newlyweds alone with a decision to make.   
  
With just one look at one another, both Agron and Nasir smiled and knew that they were thinking the exact same thing:  
  
It was a very easy decision actually.   
  
They didn't even need time to think about it.  
  
So together, grasping each other's hand as tightly as they could, they took the next step into their story.  
  
 _"Mom! Dad! You're not going to believe this!"_  
  
 _"Chadara! You're not going to believe this!"_  
  
 _"It's Agron!"_  
  
 _"It's Nasir!"_  
  
 _"He woke up!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So all that's left is the epilogue, which will be written in the next week or so. See you there! :)


	11. Only you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months have passed, let's see how the boys are doing...

_Six months later..._  
  
" _Ooohhoohhoohhh all I see is signs all I see is dollar signs!"_   
  
It was the still slightly-off singing voice of his husband that Nasir was greeted with as he opened the front door to their newly acquired house. Tightening his hold on the crutch in his hand, he walked, or should we say hopped his way to the source of the noise: the guest-room.  
  
As he entered the room, he couldn't help but laugh at what he was seeing: Agron with a painting roller in his hands, ear buds in his ear and specks of paint all over his overalls, singing some Rihanna song and putting some green and blue all over the walls.  
  
Agron had been completely lost in his own little world all day, which was why he was startled when he felt a pair of muscled arms wrap themselves around him and a kiss was dropped on the base of his neck. He laughed softly, took his ear buds out, dropped his roller in its container and turned around. His eyes sparkled when he looked at his husband smiling back at him with pure affection on his face.  
  
"Hey there." Agron said softly as one of Nasir's arms switched position from his waist to his neck, the other still holding on to his crutch.  
  
"Hiya." replied Nasir, leaning up and giving his husband a loving kiss, making Agron wrap his arms around his lithe form, crutch included in them.  
  
It had been a challenging six months, to say the least. Even though Agron and Nasir had woken up with all of their memories and motor skills intact, the physical toll the accident had took on the both of them had left them with still much to deal with.   
  
The wreck had left Agron with broken ribs and a fractured arm, while Nasir suffered from a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. And that wasn't talking about all of the bruises and cuts that the broken glass had left everywhere on their bodies and faces.

It had taken months of physiotherapy and tests to make the couple movable again. While the cuts and bruises had healed overtime, they were still feeling some of the effects of the accident today: Nasir was still walking around with a crutch in his hand because while the cast had been taken off his leg, it still wasn't at 100%, while Agon still had some problems from time to time picking up things because if his weakened right arm.

But despite all of this, what hadn't changed was the couple's determination and they both knew and expected to make a full-recovery. And most of all, their guilt over what had happened had completely vanished the moment that they woke up, like it had magically dissipated into the night. Both knew themselves and the other weren't to blame for the accident and their love from one another had only strengthened through all of this.

They had no real memories of what they had went through while they had been in that coma, but sometimes you could see them look at a mirror for a moment longer than necessary, as if they thought they would see something move on its own on the other side of the glass if they looked long enough...    
  
Agron broke the kiss after a moment and smiled at Nasir. "So, how did it go at the coffeehouse?" he asked him.  
  
Nasir smiled back and replied excitedly: "It went great actually! Everyone was so happy to see me, it felt pretty good to be missed, to tell you the truth. By the way, Chadara says hi!"   
  
"Well, I'll say hi back to her when we go and see her again." Agron said, and with a curious raised highbrow, he added: "Speaking of which, when do you think..."  
  
"I'll be able to get back to work? Well, I don't know exactly, because when I went to the doctor last week to check things out I...sort of forgot to ask him how things were looking in that area." Nasir finished for him and looked down, a bit ashamed to be such a air-head.  
  
It was a kiss on the top of his head that made him rise up his face once again and see Agron smiling encouragingly at him. "Listen, like everybody has said: we got to take one thing at a time for the time being and what's the most important thing right now is our health and nothing else. You'll get back to work when the time is right, don't worry about that." he said to his husband, making Nasir nod in agreement and his smile returning. Wanting to change the subject, Agron waved his hand around and asked: "Well, what do you think? Do you like the colors?"  
  
Nasir looked around the room that would become the guest-room of their new colonial-style house, the one that they had just acquired and that had somehow sprung right out of their dreams with its huge space, its modern plumbing, its state-of-the-art facilities and kitchen appliances (which were all a secret gift from both Duro and Saxa), but with still enough things left in it to be renovated so that Agron and his brother could feel like kids on a playground.

They liked doing this together so much that they had even begun talking about starting a business together...  
  
"I don't like it, I love it! This is perfect Agron!" Nasir exclaimed, loving the way the green and the blue reflected on the black ceiling and floor tiles, giving the room a homy feel that Nasir just adored. Hitting Agron on the chest with his hand, Nasir took his crutch in his hand and began hopping his way out of the room. "But I hope you're done for now, 'cause I've got a surprise for you. " he said with a mysterious smile as he turned his head around to look at his husband once more.  
  
"Really? A surprise? What is it? Tell me, come on tell me, please!" Agron cried out, bouncing up and down like a little kid despite his six-foot stature, making the smaller man laugh out loud.   
  
"Calm down you big baby, all in good time. Go get changed and meet me in ten minutes in the living room, I promise you won't be disappointed." he answered him and with that, Nasir made his way down the hall to prepare his surprise, leaving an excited Agron behind.  
  
The taller man made his way to the master bedroom and quickly changed into something cleaner than his old overalls, all of the while thinking about what Nasir's surprise might be. A car? Nah, too big. A dog? Nah, too messy. A necklace? Where in the hell did that idea come from?  
  
Meanwhile, Nasir was getting everything ready downstairs and waited, a little bit nervous. He hoped that Agron liked the surprise that he had prepared for him and wouldn't be disappointed by its simplicity. As he heard Agron's steps come down the set of stairs, he grabbed the nearby remote control and got himself ready.  
  
"Nasir? I'm ready! Can I come in and check out my surprise? I really wanna know what it is!" Agron called out excitedly as he went down the last step of the stairs. He was about to sprint out to the living room and open its door with a bang when the sound of soft music stopped his intentions and made him freeze in his stride  
  
"Nasir? What's going on?" he called out once again as he approached the living room in a weary way and opened its door slowly, revealing Nasir standing in the middle of the candles-filled room with a remote control in his hand and his crutch on the floor.  
  
Wait...his crutch on the floor? Standing?! Was Nasir really walking toward him while bending both of his knees, like nothing had ever happened to him?  
  
Seeing the slack-jawed look on his husband's face, Nasir felt a little bit self-conscious. As he stopped in front of his husband, he asked him with a bit of nervousness in his voice: "So do you like your surprise?" He got his answer when Agron picked his jaw from off the floor, picked his busband by the waist and kissed the living hell out of him.   
  
As their lips separated, Agron whispered with a tender smile on his face: "This is the most amazing surprise you could ever give me." He then stepped back a few steps and looked Nasir up-and-down with a confused face. He added: "But I don't understand, last week when you went to see the doctor while I was busy working on the garage with Duro..."  
  
"He told me that it was fine to stop using my crutch and that I could start to walk around normally."  
  
"And all that time since..."  
  
"I was only pretending to still need it."  
  
"But why?"  
  
"For this." With that, Nasir pushed a button on the remote control in his hand and a [romantic song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae8DEXdFWAc) started to play. "We've been married for almost a year now, but I believe somebody still owes me a first dance." he whispered and, putting the remote down on the floor and getting back up, he smiled and offered his hand to his husband.   
  
"May I have this dance, my love?" he asked Agron, candlelight shining in his eyes.

  
"Like you ever got to ask me for that, baby." And with that, Agron took Nasir into his arms and they began to sway gently to the music and feeling like the luckiest people on Earth: to have gone through what they had gone through and to have not only survived it all, but thrived above everything and now here they were, sharing their long-awaited and nearly never-done first dance as a married couple.   
  
After a quiet moment of the both of them dancing, Agon broke the silence when he stopped swaying and said: "I love you so much, Nasir. I always will, I hope you know that." he looked at Nasir with his heart in his eyes.  
  
Nasir looked at Agron with just as much love and replied: "I know. And I love you too, I love you so much and nothing is never, ever going to come between you and me."  
  
"Promise?"  
  
"Promise."  
  
As Agron kissed his husband on the forehead tenderly one more time and Nasir smiled back at him, their love for one another radiating from their whole being, he said with a wicked smile: "Well, while I owed you a first wedding dance, I believe that you, dear husband of mine, still owes *me* a little something."   
  
"And what would that be, oh dear husband of mine?" asked Nasir in a playful voice.  
  
As he leaned down, Agron simply replied: "A wedding night."  
  
And a wedding night they did have and luckily for them, their dream house that was now their home didn't have any neighbors living close by, because if there had been, they would have been given quite the show, that's for sure...  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we come to the end of this story. I'd like to thank everyone who wrote comments and left kudos, really meant the world to me. :)
> 
> Next story will be a spicy one-shot, still in this universe, on what happened the night the boys first met. Stay tuned for that one! :D

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think? Leave me a review or a kudos and let me know. Thank you! :)


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